Laconia preparing for new assessment tests

Like Gilford's students, Laconia's students were introduced to the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) tests last week as part of a pilot program preparing for what will be a full launch of the tests in 2005. But unlike in Gilford, the advent of the NECAP isn't going to supplant other tests used to measure student progress in Laconia's schools.

"I don't want us to overtest," said Laconia Superintendent Bob Champlin, "but I don't believe we should do away with other assessments."

That position remains consistent with a long-time policy of the Laconia School District to use multiple means to assess student performance and progress. In addition to the statewide New Hampshire Educational Improvement and Assessment Program (NHEIAP) tests, which had been given to third, sixth and tenth graders until their discontinuance this year, the local district has also used the Tera Nova test and the Colorado Reading Prompt — both of which are gains-based exams that measure individual student progress. The NHEIAPs, by contrast, were designed instead to measure school progress. In general terms, a gains-based system, according to Champlin, tracks the performance of an individual student from year to year, which requires annual testing. The NHEIAPs tracked how students in a particular grade compared in performance to students in that same grade in previous years, identifying whether or not the school was making progress in bringing target grades to a particular level of competency.

The NECAPs, which have been developed at the request of a consortium of New England states to provide the means to measure progress in accordance with No Child Left Behind, are essentially a gains-based exam that will be administered in grades two through eight and again in grade ten. It's expected that more grades in high school will be added.

While a couple of Gilford school adminstrators reported ancedotedly that students found the NECAPs easier than the NHEIAPs, Champlin said his own observation doesn't support that thesis. "The reading portion of the NECAP is especially rigorous," Champlin said, noting that it requires students to read text and then answer specific questions relating to the text. "If they don't get what they've read, they can't respond."

The superintent acknowledged that implementing the new tests is going to present a number of challenges. For example, unlike the NHEIAPs, which were administered in the spring toward the end of the school year, the NECAPs will be given in the fall. "What we don't want is to spend September and October reviewing for the tests," he said.

Also a potential problem is matching the tests to curriculum. While the NHEIAPs were directly tied to the state's curriculum framework, the NECAPs are not. That, suggested Champlin, will mean that the frameworks will have to change to coincide with what's being tested. "We have to make sure our curriculum prepares students for the demands of the tests," he said.

Champlin pointed out that a similar adjustment occurred as a consequence of the NHEAIPs. "When we learned that the NHEIAPs were testing for American History in grade ten, we moved that in the curriculum from grade eleven to grade ten," he recounted.

But in spite of the challenges, Champlin indicated that he views the new tests as a potentially valuable tool. Just not an exclusive one.