Scoring the Alternate Assessment: The Light at the end of the Tunnel

REMEMBER: Prior to scoring your building administrator must sign off on the master scorer sheet after comparing the activities used in the assessment with the activities that were preapproved!!

You can find specific information regarding scoring the alternate assessment at the following:

www.cete.us --log in with you alternate assessment ID. You can find the implementation manual under the "Students" option

Kansped.org also has information: http://www.ksde.org/Default.aspx?tabid=2384--  there is a powerpoint and information is also contained in the Teacher's Guide (make sure to select the 08-09 version).

I'm just going to highlight a few points here. Please refer to the above documents for more specific information.

Sometime prior to the score entry deadline you need to recruit two people to help you score your alternate assessment/s. They can be any licensed professional. They do not have to work directly with your student. If fact, the guidelines recommend using impartial people as much as you can. The people you choose should be already familiar with alternate assessment scoring procedures or willing to become so. Unfortunately, paras are not allowed to be scorers. One place to look for possible scorers is among other teachers also giving the alternate assessment. Network with two other teachers and score each others' assessments. You can also try related services providers, counselors, even administrators.

Continuing this year is the requirement that someone not a part of the assessment/scoring team has to enter the scores. This means you need to find a fourth person to input the scores for you. That person will need to create a Rater Entry account on the CETE website. Make sure to give them adequate time to enter the scores prior to the deadline. New this year is the requirement that each scoring sheet must be placed in a separate envelope

and sealed prior to delivery to the person responsible for score entry. This means you will need three

envelopes (letter size is fine) for each KAA  you give. Contact Pam at Haverhill if you need envelopes.

Once you have all your data gathered you will need to go to the CETE website to print off rater scoring sheets for each student. You need to fill out each box with a brief description of the matching evidence. This allows raters to easily double check that they are scoring the correct items. At this point you need to submit your completed portfolios and the scorer sheet to your building administrator for approval. After your administrator signs off on the assessment/s you will need to make a copy of each worksheet for each rater. It is also a good idea to enter the rater's name and rater code (located on the cover page of the worksheets). Scoring is done directly on these worksheets, which are then given to the person responsible for score entry (see note above). Notice that at the bottom of the worksheet is a place to indicate if the rater found any pieces of evidence difficult to rate. Please make note that a rater should enter quantity not the actual number of  the evidence that was difficult to rate! For example, if the rater found evidence numbers 3, 6, and 12 difficult to rate, then he/she should circle 3 on this chart, not 3, 6, and 12. Be sure your raters understand this. There is also a place for the score entry person to sign off on whether they received the score sheets individually.

Once you have your raters recruited, you need to set a time to review and score the portfolios. This can be done together as a group or individually. It is important to note that scores are to be determined independently of other raters with no consultation between raters. Limited questions can be asked of the responsible teacher, but for the most part scorers are limited to rating only the information contained on the evidence label and data sheet. In addition, scorers can only judge the student's abilities based on the three pieces of evidence provided regardless of their personal knowledge of the student.

Scores are determined using a rubric:

Skill Performance Rubric

The scorer is responsible for determining where the student's performance falls within this rubric. Obviously the easiest data to score would be correct/incorrect data. The answer is either right or wrong and a simple % score can be determined. Some teachers may use a rubric of their own to define student responses. This may require the scorer to look more closely at the data to determine a score based on the above rubric. NOTE: teachers may not use the alternate assessment scoring rubric to define student performance.

An example of a piece of evidence gathered by using a rubric:

Indicator: EM 3.1.1 Matches 3-dimensional shapes or manipulatives

Activity: When shown an object, the student will identify the matching object from a field of three

Acceptable supports:

Score of 3 = student located item on first try from 3 items

Score of 2 = student located item on second try from 2 items

Score of 1 = student located item on third try from 2 items after item was named

Score of 0 = student located item from choice of 1 or refused to locate the item

Data:

Item 1: 3      Item 2:  1     Item 3: 0      Item 4: 2     Item 5: 2          Accuracy score: 8/20 or 40% (this score denotes the student's level of independence; this student required moderate assistance to complete this task. This score is used to evaluate the student's performance for the purposes of the IEP)

Scoring on the alternate assessment rubric:

Scorer A judged that this student completed this task 4/5 times with acceptable levels of support and assigned a score of 4.

Scorer B judged that this student completed this task 3/5 times with acceptable levels of support and assigned a score of 3. This scorer felt that the Level 1 support was evaluating vocabulary skills rather than matching skills so did not consider a data score of 1 to be an acceptable level of support.

Note the difference between the alternate assessment scoring and the IEP scoring. In addition, notice how easy it is for two scorers to interpret data differently.

Teachers may not lead the student to correct responses. If it is apparent that this is the case, then the piece of evidence should be given a score of 1.

1 is the lowest score a piece of evidence can receive. 0 is reserved for missing pieces of evidence.

Also important to remember: no half points may be given.

Scorers should also be reminded that the presentation quality of the portfolio should not affect scoring.