38 months to new student tests

Senate Bill 1, if signed by the Governor, will move Kentucky to a new student assessment at the end of the 2011-12 school year. The new assessment will:

• Assess reading, mathematics, science, social studies, and writing.
• Use constructed-response items, multiple-choice items, and on-demand prompts.
• Produce criterion-based and norm-referenced scores (meaning that student work will be compared both to state standards and to how a national sample of students performed).
• Include Explore, Plan, and ACT readiness tests.
  
• Be taken during five of the last fourteen days of the school year.
• Return scores to schools within seventy-five days after the start of testing.

Writing portfolios will be required, but not used for accountability. Arts and humanities and practical/career studies will not be tested.

For further details, including grades to be tested, click here for a one-page PDF summary. For the complete bill, click here, and on that page, click the link that says "SB 1."