Posts by sbadmin

Anthony Grisillo, the 2014-15 teacher of the year in Pennsylvania, recently participated in a study by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY). Grisillo, a teacher librarian, along with a dozen or so other teachers, reviewed the Smarter Balanced fifth-grade assessment against former state tests in Oregon and Nevada. In a blog article in…

In a letter to the editor in the Bellevue Reporter titled, “Student assessments ensure students gain needed skills,” Bellevue, WA businessman Peter Raulerson writes about the need to challenge students with rigorous learning standards and high-quality assessments, like Smarter Balanced. Washington state’s economy is creating jobs — 700,000 during the next five years — but employers are forced to…

Desmos, which has created a free online graphing calculator, announced its new partnership with Smarter Balanced. Desmos won a competitive contract with Smarter Balanced in 2016 to build an online calculator that provides accessible features for students who are blind and visually impaired. You can watch a video and read about the Desmos-Smarter Balanced partnership at CNN. Smarter Balanced will…

Oregon high school math teacher Allan Brunner, the state’s 2006 Teacher of the Year, was curious if Smarter Balanced represented what his students were learning in class. So he went right to the source: his students. What I didn’t know was how my students would react to the Smarter Balanced test. Would they see taking…