Dive Brief:
- On Thursday, Connecticut education officials announced plans to replace an existing state test for 11th graders with the SAT, beginning this fall.
- The response is intended to lower the testing burden on high school juniors, who must currently take federally mandated tests alongside any college eligibility exams they take.
- Passing the SAT will not be required to graduate or to progress to the 12th grade, but a student’s score on the exam will be one of several measures used to determine their progress.
Dive Insight:
High school has proven to be one of the battlegrounds over testing, as several states saw substantial upticks this year in the number of high school juniors in particular who opted out of state exams. At the heart of those opt-outs are concerns over how much time students spend taking district, state, and federal exams, in addition to the stakes associated with them.
Connecticut, interestingly, made the decision to drop its brand-new Common Core-aligned state tests before officials even received the first year of data. Officials said their rapid decision was due to concerns about overtesting, not performance, per se. The decision to drop the state test will have no impact on the state’s No Child Left Behind waiver, which exempts it from the most stringent provisions of the Bush-era law. Federal education officials OK'd the decision and renewed the state’s waiver late last week.
