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Annual achievement
testing starts March 22
South Dakota’s annual
testing of students in grades 3-8 and grade 11 will take place between March
22-April 16 this year. Public schools are required by state law to
administer the tests to all enrolled students in these grades; there is no
cost to the schools for the tests or the scoring services and reports.
New to the state
testing system this year are some features that respond to input received
from local test administrators, including:
- All
new directions for administration. The booklet has been completely
rewritten.
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Each question booklet and answer form will have the grade it tests
printed prominently on the cover so that it is easy for the
administrator to insure that the correct form is being distributed to
the students who are assembled for a testing session.
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Grade 3 students will answer test questions directly in the booklet.
There is no separate answer sheet for Grade 3 this year.
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Each school receives a complete set of pre-printed ID labels for each
student, eliminating the need to “fill in the blanks” on the answer
forms.
The South Dakota
testing system, known as the Dakota State Test of Educational Progress
(STEP), includes the abbreviated Stanford-10 norm referenced test plus
augmentation (additional test items) in math and reading. The augmented
questions specifically test each child’s mastery of the South Dakota Content
Standards in reading and math.
Scores from the
augmented standards-based questions at each grade are used for the
calculation of each public school’s “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) per
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) regulations. The percent of students tested
in each grade 3-8 (i.e. “participation rate”) is also calculated for NCLB
requirements. |
