1 board of education of the city of los angeles 2...

1

1 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES

2 CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

3 FEBRUARY 25, 2014

4

5

6 MR. CRAIN: It's 1:14 p.m.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Great.

8 All right. Welcome to Curriculum Instruction

9 and Assessment Committee. We're going to go ahead and

10 go around the horseshoe, and I'd like everyone to

11 introduce themselves, please.

12 We'll go ahead and start over there with

13 Dr. Muller.

14 MR. MULLER: Hi, I'm Dr. Brian Muller. I am a

15 UTLA representative standing in for Gregg Solkovits,

16 the Secondary Vice President.

17 MR. LOERA: Good afternoon, my name is

18 Gerardo Loera. I'm the Executive Director for

19 Curriculum and Instruction for LAUSD.

20 MR. ROSS: Randy Ross, Advisor to Board

21 District 1.

22 MR. ZIMMER: Steve Zimmer, Board member.

23 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you. I'm Monica Ratliff,

24 the Chairperson.

25 MR. KAYSER: Bennett Kayser, Board member from

CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT

2

1 Board District 5.

2 MR. RAMIREZ: Juan Ramirez, Elementary

3 Vice President UTLA.

4 MR. FOLSOM: Scott Folsom representing both

5 10th and 31st Districts P.T.A./P.D.S.A.

6 MS. PAPPAS: Diane Pappas, Office of General

7 Counsel.

8 MR. LOPEZ: I'm Luis Lopez, principal at

9 Wilson High School representing AALA.

10 MR. SUNDEEN: I'm Tim Sundeen. I'm a parent

11 rep.

12 MS. CHAVEZ: Hi, Ruby Chavez, a parent rep.

13 MS. GUTHRIE: Linda Guthrie representing

14 United Teachers Los Angeles.

15 MS. RATLIFF: So we're going to go ahead and

16 get started. I do want to acknowledge this committee

17 was originally started by Ms. Marguerite Lamotte who

18 unfortunately is no longer with us, so I will be taking

19 over this committee for the rest of the year.

20 I wanted to go over the schedule for the rest

21 of the year just so people got a sense of what's on the

22 agendas that are upcoming.

23 Okay. So obviously today is an overview of

24 student assessments administered by LAUSD. In March

25 we're going to start talking about changes in math



3

1 standards, and this has been something that certainly

2 my Board office has received emails about, and so we

3 are looking forward to that presentation.

4 Now, we are going to be changing the date from

5 March 18th so that Gerardo Loera can do the

6 presentation, and we think that's very important, so we

7 will notify as soon as possible people what the new

8 date is. I'm guessing we're going to push it back

9 actually in March is probably how we'll do it instead

10 of trying to push it forward.

11 Tuesday, April 8th, again that's another one

12 we may actually push back in order to make sure as many

13 Board -- as many committee members as can attend can

14 attend, but our April presentation's definitely going

15 to be regarding overview of A through G requirements.

16 We're going to talk about summer school and credit

17 recovery. We're going to have art update, and then

18 there'll be an update on assessments as well because by

19 that point we'll be moving into kind of our assessment

20 season, so we'll get some more information about that.

21 In May the focus is English Language

22 Development and Standard English Curriculum and the

23 connection to the Common Core State Standards, and then

24 in June we're going to look at Linked Learning Foreign

25 Languages and enrichment activities such as academic



4

1 decathlon, student clubs, sports and other extra

2 curriculars. So if you have any comments or questions

3 related to those topics, if you would please send them

4 to my office so that we can make sure your questions

5 are addressed, that would be fantastic.

6 And if you have anything -- if any of the

7 committee members have anything, please, as well, give

8 it to us.

9 Okay. So without further ado, I see that we

10 have -- two public comment cards have been pulled. In

11 light of the fact that I'm assuming that those are

12 related to assessment because that's what's on the

13 agenda, I am going to go ahead and have Mr. Loera do

14 the presentation first and then do the public comment

15 related to -- oh, is Dr. Lim doing it?

16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.)

17 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. All right.

18 And then we'll do the public comment after

19 that.

20 MS. LIM: Good afternoon, Members of the

21 Committee. I'm Cynthia Lim, Executive Director of the

22 Office of Data and Accountability, and Gerardo and I

23 are going to share the presentation today.

24 I'm going to give you an overview of

25 assessments.



5

1 Were we going to do the assessment or no?

2 MR. LOERA: (Unintelligible.)

3 MS. LIM: Okay.

4 Because in part of your packet, we gave you a

5 sample assessment of what the new Common Core

6 Assessments will look like to give you an idea of how

7 we are shifting our assessments from our -- what we've

8 done for the last ten years in the California Standards

9 Tests to these new Common Core Assessments.

10 So should we go to the first slide?

11 So the shift in testing is really away from

12 paper/pencil testing, bubbling answer sheets, multiple

13 choice only and, you know, waiting for months for the

14 results to an on-line electronic test -- testing on

15 electronic devices using computer adaptive questions

16 based on students' skills and knowledge meaning like

17 the GRE or others test, your answers to your first

18 question determine the pathway for the future

19 questions. So if you missed an easy question, you get

20 a different pathway. If you -- if you get the hard

21 questions, you get a different pathway.

22 So we're really moving toward

23 computer-adaptive type of tests and more choices than

24 just multiple choice. So there will still be multiple

25 choice type questions on these assessments, but there



6

1 will be more short and extended constructive response

2 questions where students are asked to write their

3 answers rather than choose from an array of possible

4 answers. And there will be performance tests, so

5 students will have to, you know, read a passage and

6 then perform a task and show their work.

7 So how are we moving from, you know, our old

8 assessment system to a new one?

9 So in the -- across the States of California,

10 we are spending tests on the California Standards in

11 English Language Arts and Math, and there is a new name

12 for the assessment system in California. It's now

13 called the California Assessment of Student Performance

14 and Progress, CAASPP, instead of STAR, which we're, you

15 know, all used to referring to.

16 The assessments are going to be in line to the

17 Common Core State Standards in English and Mathematics.

18 This year 2013/14 is a transition year, so we will not

19 have California Standards Test in English Language Arts

20 and Math. We will be doing a field test across the

21 State of California on these new Smarter Balanced

22 Consortium Tests that are aligned to the Common Core.

23 And these new Smarter Balanced Assessments will be

24 fully operational in the '14/'15 school year.

25 So as a reminder, what are we doing this



7

1 spring in terms of assessments.

2 So these are all the state assessments that

3 are still happening in the '13/'14 school year. We

4 will still have some California Standards Tests in

5 Science, in grades 5, 8 and 10, and we will still have

6 the grade 11 California Standards Test for the EAP, the

7 Early Assessment Program for college readiness. So

8 that is happening.

9 The writing assessment --

10 MR. ZIMMER: I just want to ask you really

11 quickly. Forgive me for interrupting.

12 Did -- did -- did -- did -- did we on the

13 science test, is that something that we chose to do, or

14 the state is still --

15 MS. LIM: It's a federal requirement of "No

16 Child Left Behind" that we have to assess in science.

17 MR. ZIMMER: That we have to -- that we have

18 to assess in science.

19 And so all districts in the State of

20 California are still doing the CST Science test?

21 MS. LIM: Yes.

22 MR. ZIMMER: Okay. Thank you.

23 MS. LIM: All of the slides that I'm showing

24 you right now is not just the district. It's all the

25 schools in the State of California.



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1 So all schools in the State of California will

2 be doing the field test for the Smarter Balanced. Our

3 testing window in LAUSD starts April 1st through

4 May 16th, except for Bell High School which is our only

5 year-round high school. They will start march 18th and

6 go through June 6th because of the different tracks.

7 MS. RATLIFF: So I have quick question.

8 MS. LIM: Yeah.

9 MS. RATLIFF: So the federal requirement

10 related to the science CSTs, do they expect that to

11 continue for years to come, or is there some

12 expectation that that's going to change.

13 MS. LIM: At least for the next two years

14 until they rewrite the science standards to align with

15 Common Core, so I think they're expecting new science

16 assessments in either '15/'16 or '16/'17, and, again,

17 that's the state timeline.

18 MS. RATLIFF: And then we're supposed to start

19 the Smarter Balanced Field test April 1st?

20 MS. LIM: Yes.

21 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. And so is that going to

22 be started -- I'm just curious. In terms of a rollout,

23 is that going to be started with the schools that

24 receive the iPads early on, or how is that going to be

25 rolled out?



9

1 MS. LIM: Each school -- there's a big window,

2 so it's a six-week-plus window of when they could start

3 testing, so each school decides what they're testing

4 window will be, so it's within those six weeks.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So each school decides their

6 testing window, but I remember there was some

7 discussion about whether or not we would be able to get

8 devices to the schools in time.

9 Are all the schools going to have received

10 their devices by April 1st or --

11 MS. LIM: Yes. According to our current

12 plans, yes.

13 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, really? Okay. So great.

14 Now, will they also get keyboards?

15 MS. LIM: Yes. Keyboards and earbuds are

16 included.

17 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So by April 1st, all our

18 schools are supposed to have their iPads, their

19 keyboards, and they're earbuds?

20 MS. LIM: Yes.

21 MS. RATLIFF: Fantastic. Thank you.

22 MS. LIM: And mobile Hotspots.

23 MS. RATLIFF: Yeah.

24 MR. MULLER: I'm sorry. I had a couple

25 questions.



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1 First of all, regarding the computer adaptive

2 questions --

3 MS. LIM: Yes.

4 MR. MULLER: -- one of the -- I taught a

5 class, Read 180, a scholastic product. They had a

6 computer adaptive test sequence in there, and one of

7 the things that happened with some of my kids was that

8 the first couple of questions, they didn't take it

9 super seriously because they were not really focusing

10 on what they were doing, and then later on they were

11 like "Wait. Wait. I want to go back."

12 Now, the thing is that there's no way to know

13 whether they actually knew the answers to the first

14 questions because those are gone, but what it did was,

15 once they were on a particular pathway, those first

16 couple of questions being marked incorrectly, they were

17 essentially unable to reach a passing score to be able

18 to be out of the program.

19 So what happens in Read 180 in high school?

20 The recommended cut score was a thousand and,

21 ultimately, if they missed the first two, it pushed

22 them into such a low trajectory, there was no way they

23 could get back up to a thousand by proving that they

24 knew enough. Basically the computer would cut them

25 off, and there was no way, even if they marked the rest



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1 of them correctly, it would say, "Your score is 800,"

2 or "Your score is 850," and so those students were

3 precluded from the proficiency mark.

4 Is there any kind of design that you know of

5 that would prevent that from happening with the

6 assessments that are coming out?

7 MS. LIM: We don't have the answer to that

8 right now. With this field test -- the field test is

9 not going to be computer adaptive. The field test is

10 going to help create those pathways for the computer

11 adaptive test when it's fully operational in the

12 2014/'15, so we don't really know yet --

13 MR. MULLER: Okay.

14 MS. LIM: -- how the whole computer adaptive

15 part of it will work.

16 MR. MULLER: Okay. Thank you.

17 And the other question I had I guess is more

18 of a comment than anything else.

19 This transitional year, in a presentation --

20 Ms. Ratliff, you and I were both there at Senator Lou's

21 roundtable --

22 MS. RATLIFF: Uh-huh.

23 MR. MULLER: -- that there was the comment

24 that the field test was not to be used to really assess

25 student learning. That the whole idea was to make sure



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1 the system was -- that all of the kinks could be worked

2 out before that -- the real deal came out. Especially

3 like you said, it just helped to develop the pathways.

4 It helps to make sure the infrastructure is there.

5 I wanted to make sure, has that been

6 communicated to parents, or is there a plan to

7 communicate that to parents and teachers throughout the

8 district?

9 MS. LIM: Yes. There will be no individual

10 scores to students or to parents on the results of this

11 test. The superintendent is planning a Connect Ed

12 message to all parents about that in the next week or

13 so, and we've developed a principal toolkit with sample

14 letters to go home to parents to explain to them what

15 the field test is and testing dates. All that sort of

16 thing.

17 MR. MULLER: Okay. So it will be made clear

18 that that --

19 MS. LIM: Yes.

20 MR. MULLER: Okay.

21 MS. LIM: There will be no results really to,

22 you know, to make those kinds of decisions.

23 MR. MULLER: Okay. Thank you.

24 MS. RATLIFF: And Mr. Lopez had a question.

25 MR. LOPEZ: I have a couple questions here.



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1 Will schools be notified ahead of time when

2 they're receiving the computers, and will they -- will

3 the computers need to be -- will we need to download

4 any kind of software?

5 MS. LIM: No. They will come preloaded with

6 the secure browsers, everything you need for test

7 ready, and delivery is being coordinated by Aery Jones,

8 so schools will be notified prior to delivery.

9 MS. RATLIFF: Mr. Folsom and then Mr. Zimmer.

10 MR. FOLSOM: A couple of quick questions.

11 So the test scores from the pilot test,

12 children will not be scored, and school performance

13 will only be scored on whether or not they were able to

14 connect; is that correct?

15 MS. LIM: There will be no school score.

16 MR. FOLSOM: So -- but essentially the benefit

17 to the District at this point is to know that we can do

18 this.

19 From our standpoint --

20 MS. LIM: So I want to clarify, the field test

21 is not just something that the District is doing. This

22 is happening statewide and across the nation all the

23 schools that are in the Smarter Balanced Consortium.

24 So the purpose of the field test is to test

25 the individual items and to really look at the



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1 psychometric properties of each of the items to see

2 what will be included in the fully operational test

3 when it happens in the '14/'15 school year and, again,

4 to develop those pathways for the computer adaptive

5 test.

6 MR. FOLSOM: Okay. And, now, on the overall

7 scheduling of all the tests that you just gave us that

8 are coming up in the next couple of years, are there

9 any additional tests that are required because of the

10 District's participation in the CORE Waiver process

11 that other -- other school districts in California

12 don't have to take?

13 MS. LIM: No.

14 MR. FOLSOM: No. Thank you.

15 And then you mentioned that the test -- that

16 the scores -- once this happens, the scores will become

17 available much sooner than they have in the past?

18 MS. LIM: We would hope -- we would hope so

19 because they're all taken electronically, so, you know,

20 part of the --

21 MR. FOLSOM: Do we have a clue? Is it a

22 month? A week?

23 MS. LIM: No.

24 MR. FOLSOM: Okay. So if somebody --

25 MS. LIM: I can't --



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1 MR. FOLSOM: If somebody has an answer for

2 that at some point, I'd love to know what it is.

3 Thank you.

4 MS. LIM: Okay.

5 MR. ZIMMER: I want you to correct me if I'm

6 wrong. There's the psycho -- the psychometric

7 properties, each item are going to go through field

8 testing. I couldn't pretend to know, you know, how the

9 psychometricians will be looking at these scores and

10 determining validity and all those things I barely

11 passed in statistics.

12 But isn't -- aren't we giving the field test

13 for another reason?

14 I mean isn't this also about really going

15 through the process to work out our own delivery system

16 on this?

17 MS. LIM: Absolutely. I think every

18 district -- you know, every district across the state

19 and the nation is going through the same thing.

20 They're going through the same hiccups around being

21 able to take this on-line and, you know, connectivity

22 issues.

23 So, yes, we will across the nation, across the

24 states, across the district, we will learned a lot

25 about this field test.



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1 MR. ZIMMER: No district is like our district,

2 and so I'm -- what I'm wondering is, is like what's --

3 when will we know what is kind of our -- what's our

4 game plan in terms of learning the absolute most from

5 this process that we possibly can?

6 Well, let me say it -- let me give you a

7 different example.

8 So during like the -- the preseason of any

9 kind of professional sports teams, the -- of course,

10 you're playing a game. The goal really isn't to win.

11 The goal is really to see how your team performs. How

12 it -- and how do things work together. What

13 adjustments can you make for when the games actually

14 count.

15 But there's a total misperception because, you

16 know, you sell tickets to preseason games. You -- you

17 know, they keep score. They -- they -- so my question

18 is, what is our game plan to make sure that we're

19 really focused on the learning process here and not

20 kind of on the spectacle that often happens in LAUSD

21 when we're trying to learn from a process?

22 MS. LIM: So we've learned a lot from last

23 year. We had 42 schools pilot these assessments last

24 year, so we learned a lot from that experience in terms

25 of just logistics of getting kids to log onto the



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1 system. You know, to get the browser download

2 properly, so we're using all of that knowledge.

3 This year we are training a cadre of support

4 personnel to help out at schools during

5 troubleshooting. We have -- we have a dedicated

6 Help Desk line for schools to call during testing. We

7 will be collecting information from students, teachers,

8 possibly even parents about their experience as they

9 take this field test.

10 So we are basically trying to collect as much

11 information as we can, and we are trying to gear up so

12 that we are prepared to answer all the technical issues

13 that come up.

14 MR. ZIMMER: For me, at some point, if we can

15 kind of be given -- you can take this message back --

16 if we can kind of be -- we've been given some of this

17 in bits and pieces.

18 If there is at some point where we kind of can

19 get the comprehensive playbook so that we can be --

20 that -- that -- that we -- that we can be in our role

21 the best partner possible, because I think messaging on

22 this is -- is key because, as you know -- you know, if

23 it looks like a test, if it feels like a test, if it

24 behaves like a test, we sometimes run into the worry

25 that, you know, people will actually think it is a



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1 test, and we, of course, want that realistic

2 simulation, but we also want to make sure that we're

3 communicating. That this is a learning experience.

4 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. A couple more questions

5 before we leave this slide.

6 I'm going to start with Board Member Kayser

7 and then go --

8 MR. KAYSER: Is there a catalog or directory

9 of the reports that will be available from the -- from

10 these tests?

11 MS. LIM: There will be no reports. From the

12 field tests, there will be no reports.

13 MR. KAYSER: For example, would you be able to

14 compare how well one high school does against another

15 high school?

16 MS. LIM: No. No. Not on the field test.

17 MR. KAYSER: So that's not part of the -- when

18 will those reports be generated and tested?

19 MS. LIM: So there will be no reports about

20 student performance or school performance from the

21 field test. The first inkling that we'll have about

22 performance will be in the '14/'15 school year when

23 these assessments are fully operational.

24 MR. KAYSER: What about -- you missed the

25 teacher performance.



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1 Will there be teacher performance reports.

2 MS. LIM: No. Not for the '13/'14 school

3 year. For the '13/'14 school year, no results across

4 the board. No students, no teachers, no schools.

5 MR. KAYSER: Thank you.

6 MS. RATLIFF: Mr. Ramirez?

7 MR. RAMIREZ: You said that by April 1st,

8 every student that's going to be tested will have a

9 computer; right?

10 Is that --

11 MS. LIM: An iPad device.

12 MR. RAMIREZ: Okay.

13 MS. LIM: Not every student. Schools will

14 have iPad carts. It's not a one-to-one deployment.

15 MR. RAMIREZ: Okay. Well, we had a concern

16 that some schools that were piloting for the testing,

17 they were having difficulty like pointing, or when they

18 would touch the answer, they would hit the next one.

19 My concern is that will we have these in time

20 for our students to be able to practice how to use the

21 equipment because even that might give you a different

22 result.

23 MS. LIM: Yeah. Well, I -- you know, I've

24 been told that our delivery schedule will have these

25 devices in the schools by the end of March, so some



20

1 schools may not have whole lot of lead time.

2 MR. RAMIREZ: Okay. Thank you.

3 MS. RATLIFF: And then Mr. Lopez and then

4 Ms. Guthrie.

5 MR. LOPEZ: So you mentioned there will be

6 several different support systems for the schools, and

7 I'm wondering when the administrative staffs or the --

8 just the school staffs will be notified of how to

9 access the trained technicians, how to access the

10 support desks and what are the protocols?

11 Also, will schools be able to, after the fact,

12 notify or debrief or report their experiences; what

13 successes, what went wrong, what are their needs for

14 future?

15 You know, how will that happen?

16 MS. LIM: Yes, so we are -- we're in the

17 process of developing a whole series of training

18 materials right now. A lot of it will be web-based.

19 We've just had two face-to-face meetings with all

20 schools last week. I think it was last week to kind

21 of -- as the first round of training.

22 We have testing coordinator modules that are

23 being prepared at this point. We have troubleshooting

24 guides that are all being prepared. They should hit

25 schools probably in the next week or two or next



21

1 two weeks, and we are working on a system of collecting

2 feedback from schools in a very systematic way.

3 MS. RATLIFF: Ms. Guthrie?

4 MS. GUTHRIE: Thank you. I have a very simple

5 question.

6 Will there be a way to distinguish between

7 what students are using iPads, what students are using

8 computers so that we will know whether students have

9 greater facility with one as opposed to the other?

10 Is there going to be a controlled group or --

11 MS. LIM: No. I don't think that we have a

12 way of knowing what device they use to access the test.

13 I don't think that we will have a way of doing that.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Okay.

15 Mr. Folsom?

16 MR. FOLSOM: One more question.

17 You mentioned that the students are all going

18 to have earbuds?

19 MS. LIM: Uh-huh.

20 MR. FOLSOM: Will there be a set of earbuds

21 for every child?

22 Because I know that many of the schools will

23 be sharing the devices.

24 MS. LIM: Yes. We've ordered enough for each

25 child to have their own.



22

1 MR. FOLSOM: Okay. Thank you.

2 MS. RATLIFF: Great. Thank you.

3 MS. LIM: Okay. So can I finish the slide?

4 MS. RATLIFF: (No audible response.)

5 MS. LIM: So in addition to all that on this

6 field test, just a reminder that, you know, other state

7 tests are still happening. There's still the high

8 school exit exam. There's the big one in March that is

9 for all 10th graders. There's one in May for 10th,

10 11th and 12th graders who haven't passed, and we are

11 still administering AP tests, so at the high school,

12 you can see that that test window is very condensed.

13 So I think the next slide is about District

14 Assessments. I'm going to turn it over to Gerardo.

15 MR. LOERA: Good afternoon. My name is

16 Gerardo Loera. I'm the Executive Director for

17 Curriculum and Instruction. I'm going to start off my

18 part of the conversation this afternoon with the

19 discussion on where we are with the District's Periodic

20 Assessments in this transition year and a little bit of

21 where we've been.

22 So up until this year, meaning through the

23 spring of 2013, we had an extensive platform that we

24 used for implementation of our district's Periodic

25 Assessments, and this year in 2013/14 is the first year



23

1 that we're not using such a platform. And then what a

2 platform is is the computer system where the data is

3 store, and people can access results and be able to

4 tell over time how students are doing.

5 So in this year, we have worked to totally

6 redesign what the Periodic Assessment System is knowing

7 that in 2014/'15, all of this will continue to change.

8 So we have the Periodic Assessments that are

9 created and aligned to the Common Core Standards for

10 two, for each grade area -- subject areas, I should

11 say, and that has been our practice this year. We made

12 those Periodic Assessments available in the fall. We

13 did them on-line. The concept -- we posted the

14 assessments on-line.

15 And the concept is that this year we'd be

16 looking more at our practice and what we're doing

17 instructionally in preparation for a deeper

18 implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

19 So in the new implementation of the

20 assessments, there's been a total change in the way we

21 even do them. For instance, we actually encourage

22 student dialogue and discourse to take place during the

23 assessment as part of the learning process.

24 So just recently, at the end of January, we

25 posted the second set of Periodic Assessments that are



24

1 being used throughout the district. Any LAUSD employee

2 can log in to obtain those assessments. The website

3 for that a "ccss.lausd.net," and that's behind our

4 district firewall so that we can actually see what

5 those assessments look like by grade.

6 We've gotten some interesting feedback along

7 the way in terms of how students and teachers are

8 reacting to the assessments, particularly in the fall.

9 And interesting feedback demonstrates that students are

10 actually welcoming the rigor that's expected of them

11 more so than, I think, most of us actually expected

12 them to react to, so it's very positive in terms of

13 what we see our students reacting to our new

14 assessments.

15 As we continue our transition to the Common

16 Core State Standards, we're making greater use of

17 writing across the disciplines so that all of that is

18 factored into how we actually do our day-to-day

19 instruction.

20 MR. MULLER: I'm sorry. I have a few

21 questions about that slide. if that's all right --

22 MR. LOERA: Sure.

23 MR. MULLER: -- first of all, will students be

24 able to work collaboratively on the actual assessment,

25 the SBAC assessment when that widow opens.



25

1 MR. LOERA: So the Summative Assessments for

2 Smarter Balanced, no. The students will not be working

3 collaboratively.

4 MR. MULLER: Okay. So is that process made

5 clear to them, that while they can work with -- and if

6 they win the lottery and are next to someone who knows

7 what they're doing, that it's okay to work through it

8 in the formative stuff, and then when it comes time to

9 for the real thing, they have to work alone?

10 MR. LOERA: So the concept that students only

11 collaborate in the formative work is that it's a

12 different purpose for the assessment. So the Smarter

13 Balanced is a summative test. It's the end test that

14 basically dictates or is intended to demonstrate what

15 students learn throughout the entire year; whereas, the

16 formative is actually used to improve and change what

17 their course of teaching and learning will take place

18 leading to the end of your summative, so it's -- each

19 test has a different purpose.

20 MR. MULLER: No. I understand formative

21 assessment has a different function.

22 Now, when you said that the students gave

23 positive feedback, how many students did you survey for

24 that?

25 A There were about 800.



26

1 Q So you had 800? That was your end for that

2 particular survey?

3 A Yes.

4 Q Okay. And you also made a comment, but you

5 didn't really expand on this. You said that there

6 would be changes in '14/'15.

7 Can you elucidate that?

8 MR. LOERA: So as we learn more about what the

9 development of the Smarter Balanced Assessments are

10 going to look like, Smarter Balanced is once again a

11 consortium that's building the summative assessments

12 for us to use during the end of the year.

13 What Smarter Balanced is also building is

14 their own set of formative assessments and interim

15 assessments to be used during the year so that our

16 attempt is to make full use of what those assessments

17 ultimately are as they become available, and those

18 assessments are currently in development.

19 I just confirmed, as a matter of fact,

20 yesterday with CDE that math instructional blocks for

21 the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments will be made

22 available in the winter. And so as information becomes

23 available, that's in forming our work in terms of how

24 we begin to plan for that and taking advantage of

25 what's actually going to be made available to us, as



27

1 well as what we have to plan for that's not made

2 available to us as ultimately this comes through.

3 We believe in doing a periodic or quarterly

4 formative assessment as a process districtwide so that

5 we can systematically understand where our students are

6 in terms of their learning throughout the district.

7 So we intend to continue that process under

8 the new paradigm of Common Core, whether it's making

9 full use of the Smarter Balanced Interim as it becomes

10 available or doing something different.

11 MR. MULLER: Okay. And also I would like to

12 see one of those -- those -- the interim district ones.

13 In particular, I would really like to see and share

14 with the committee the 6th grade Social Studies English

15 one, the one about Code of Comradery. I think it would

16 be very interesting for the committee to review that

17 one.

18 If you can bring it to the next session, I

19 would appreciate that.

20 MR. LOERA: Well, those are available.

21 Anybody can log in right now and have access to it at

22 "ccss.lausd.net." We don't have to wait 'til the next

23 one, but, you know, it's up to Ms. Ratliff if she wants

24 to have us bring that back.

25 MS. RATLIFF: Sure. I'll talk about that in



28

1 one second. Let me get -- let me get a couple more

2 questions from the horseshoe before we move on past

3 this slide.

4 MR. KAYSER: Are the new standards, the

5 Common Core Standards, are they numbered?

6 MR. LOERA: Yes.

7 MR. KAYSER: And does that -- do those numbers

8 actually mean the sequence in which the standards need

9 to be met?

10 MR. LOERA: In some cases they have numbers

11 and letters, and they have their own numbering

12 convention.

13 MR. KAYSER: But is there a sequence?

14 For example, a problem I had as a teacher with

15 Periodic Assessments was that I didn't always teach in

16 the same order that the Periodic Assessments asked

17 questions, and at the end of the semester, my students

18 knew the curriculum, but they never -- didn't

19 necessarily know at the time of the Periodic Assessment

20 all of the -- all of the information that was there.

21 And that's something that's concerning with

22 this new system as well, particularly with the comments

23 that were made about using the computer that

24 interfaced -- that selects a track or a pathway based

25 on responses to previous questions, and is -- is that



29

1 going to be taken into account?

2 You know, if I wanted to teach multiplication

3 before I taught division and the standards were the in

4 the other sequence, my -- a lot of my kids might not

5 pass the test.

6 MR. LOERA: It's a great question, and I think

7 my response to that is -- is that -- and a lot of this

8 is still in development and not fully finalized, so

9 we'll have to see how it actually materializes.

10 But in terms of the direction that Smarter

11 Balanced seems to be headed is that an -- an entire

12 year will be broken up into various instructional

13 blocks, and those instructional blocks could then be

14 combined to form a particular assessment, whether it's

15 an interim assessment or a formative.

16 And that system will have some degree of

17 flexibility in terms of when assessment items can be

18 taken. We're not sure at this point whether it will be

19 at a state level, a district level, a school level, or

20 a teacher level the degree to which those assessments

21 will be made available for folks to be able to actually

22 take.

23 So what we intend on doing as information

24 comes out is to provide guidance around recommendations

25 and when certain assessment blocks should be completed



30

1 and taken so that it matches what our overall

2 instructional map looks like for the school district.

3 While we recognize that in the climate of

4 autonomous schools, different schools are in different

5 places, and so what we need to do is provide guidance

6 that meets most schools knowing that there will be

7 other schools that follow a different pathway.

8 And so that is ultimately a piece that we're

9 working on -- on developing as we learn more from what

10 Smarter Balanced is giving to us so that we can meet

11 the need of all schools.

12 MR. KAYSER: I just hope it shakes out that

13 the assessments are measuring what's taught rather than

14 what's taught being a slave to the assessments.

15 MS. RATLIFF: Mr. Lopez?

16 MR. LOPEZ: Yes.

17 In the absence of -- in the absence of

18 materials that are Common Core aligned at this time, so

19 teachers are being asked to develop lessons and units

20 of study and so on and so forth to prepare for the

21 teaching of and the implementation of Common Core State

22 Standards.

23 One of the questions that we have is how will

24 the District expect that we teach Common Core

25 Standards?



31

1 Is it, for instance, one strand you store

2 taught over a period of time, or is it one unit -- one

3 concept for one unit one period of time so that we

4 chunk it out, if you will?

5 That's important because as they're writing

6 lessons and units right now, will -- will we choose to

7 write or -- or to prepare for the benchmark assessments

8 and even for the future when we actually start teaching

9 the -- or start testing using the Smarter Balanced?

10 MR. LOERA: All right. Thank you.

11 So what the instructional staff has been

12 engaged in doing over the last couple of years is

13 revising the curriculum maps that basically outline the

14 recommended approach in terms of what we will be doing

15 for Common Core implementation at each grade in the

16 various disciplines in English and Mathematics. Those

17 are also being made available on our websites.

18 What we also are very conscious of is putting

19 the right balance between creating enough guidance and

20 not being to prescriptive and so making sure that

21 people have enough so that they can begin to do that

22 heavy work.

23 That being said, we recognize full well

24 that -- that a curriculum and professional development

25 is only part of the total puzzle and that we do have a



32

1 need around also providing aligned content for teachers

2 so they have a place by which to start and build from.

3 And so that is something that as the budget

4 improve, the Board will ultimately also prioritize in

5 terms of making that decision.

6 MS. RATLIFF: So I have a couple questions.

7 So one of my questions is actually not for you

8 but for Dr. Muller.

9 The 6th grade Social Studies Periodic

10 Assessment that you want us to take a look at,

11 theoretically we can look at it on May 27th. It might

12 be best for us to look at it also ahead of time, but

13 what is it -- what exactly are you interested in us

14 focusing on at that time?

15 MR. MULLER: What it came into is that

16 6th graders have a -- they have topics that might be

17 developmentally inappropriate, and what happened was

18 the 6th grade assessment that came out was asking

19 students to judge whether the punishments that were

20 laid out in the Code of Comradery were appropriate,

21 which I think is an interesting discussion.

22 The thing is that there are in excessive of

23 hundreds of little rules about how things are supposed

24 to work out. So like, for example, if somebody builds

25 a house and the house falls on the person, then the



33

1 person who built the house also gets put to death.

2 That kind of thing. It seems a little strong for

3 6th graders, but, okay. I can get there.

4 But out of the hundreds that were chosen, one

5 of the ones -- one of the items in particular was

6 whether it would be appropriate to stone an adulterer

7 to death, and so ultimately you get into a discussion

8 of adultery. You get into the discussion of stoning

9 people to death. A lots of things that might be not

10 exactly the most appropriate subject material for

11 6th graders developmentally.

12 I think ultimately if a high schooler were to

13 consider something like that, it would be more

14 appropriate, and it's just -- it concerns me that that

15 kind of thing would have been developed. And the

16 conversations that I heard between the teachers at a

17 school sites and the district representatives were,

18 "Oh, I don't know how that got through."

19 And I find that to be a little disconcerting.

20 That's the only example that I have because it's the

21 only thing that I've heard about. Unfortunately, I

22 work here now instead of in the classroom, so I don't

23 have as much contact in that respect, but I'm sure that

24 if it happened once, it's the kind of thing that may

25 happen again, and I would want to make sure that



34

1 whatever -- that in the drive to assess students, that

2 we don't forget that they are our children. That they

3 are -- there's appropriate subject material for every

4 grade level, and you have to be more cautious the

5 younger they get.

6 MS. RATLIFF: So -- okay. I think that would

7 merit some -- a "look/see" committee, so why don't we

8 schedule that for May 27th, and if we could get -- if

9 we could -- I could either have my office try to find

10 it on the thing, or if you would like to have your

11 office try to find it, just let me know which you

12 prefer, and then we'll make sure everybody gets it on

13 the committee, and then we'll briefly, briefly discuss

14 it on the 27th.

15 And then --

16 MR. ZIMMER: (Inaudible.)

17 MS. RATLIFF: Is this related to this one?

18 MR. ZIMMER: Just if I may very quickly

19 related to that.

20 MS. RATLIFF: Sure.

21 MR. ZIMMER: While I would welcome that

22 conversation, I just think that it's appropriate to ask

23 you, Mr. Loera, has someone done a recent review of

24 testing items, you know, and is the District completely

25 comfortable with the items in terms of their age



35

1 appropriateness subject matter, skills tested, all of

2 those things?

3 I imagine that there's -- that we review the

4 final items before they go back.

5 Have we done those screens, and are you

6 comfortable in saying that we believe that all items

7 that are being sent to our schools for testing are both

8 age appropriate and skill appropriate?

9 MR. LOERA: Thank you.

10 So we do have a pretty rigorous process that

11 basically examines and develops each of these test

12 items. The amount of time that goes into these is

13 extraordinary in terms of making sure they're of the

14 highest quality, and they can actually measure what

15 Smarter Balanced is intending us to do.

16 Ultimately, we want to make sure that all of

17 that includes all the developmental appropriateness and

18 all that like Dr. Muller is referring to. There are

19 times when we do have controversy or folks that

20 disagree with a particular item, and then if and when

21 that occurs, we do have a process by which that comes

22 back, and then we can review it and see if we want to

23 make further edits/revisions. Not to unlike when

24 somebody challenges content in either a book that we

25 may have in a particular library, and then we have an



36

1 entire process by which we deal with that.

2 MR. ZIMMER: (Inaudible.)

3 MS. RATLIFF: No. Go ahead.

4 MR. ZIMMER: Other than Dr. Muller's comments

5 right now, have you received concerns about any of our

6 Periodic Assessment items or any of the other items

7 that are -- I mean I understand there are people who

8 all the time for various reasons, you know, challenge,

9 you know, different items on tests. Like, I get that,

10 but I mean have you -- have you had -- have you had any

11 reason to do a more detailed review or a second review

12 or a second look because if there is a reason to do

13 that, I would hope that that might happen before

14 May 27th.

15 If there's not, then I'm -- I -- I get the

16 message from the administration that you believe that

17 that's been done and that you are comfortable with the

18 items that we are sending out to the school, and I

19 trust in that, and we move forward and have the

20 discussion on May 27th.

21 So is there a need for a second review at this

22 point?

23 Is there -- because if there is, I rather have

24 it done now.

25 MR. LOERA: Yes. So personally I don't think



37

1 there is a need to go back and revisit that. This is

2 the first concern I hear about this particular -- I

3 could go back to the team and have them do a second

4 look for developmentalness and do that double-check,

5 but I personally don't have a concern at this point.

6 MR. MULLER: Okay. So that's -- I find that

7 interesting. You said there wasn't any concern, but I

8 know that the teachers that spoke to me had also spoken

9 to district representatives. They didn't have the

10 name, of course, and it wasn't something I was

11 interested in at the time and that worries me that

12 there hasn't been that kind of backflow. It hasn't

13 come back to the -- the source.

14 So, ultimately, if -- if teachers or parents

15 or students had concerns about the content, what would

16 be the process?

17 Would they send you an email? Would that be

18 appropriate, or what would be the best way to make that

19 happen?

20 A So it can come through a variety of different

21 channels. So it can be channeled through their

22 teacher, principal, instructional director. It can be

23 channeled through any of the content folks that come up

24 through the channels we have. Some -- two

25 History/Social Science folks here in the central office



38

1 that most likely would be the initial recipients

2 because they're leading the development of those

3 assessment items.

4 MR. MULLER: No. I'm asking specifically who

5 would they get in touch with because ultimately the --

6 I want to make sure that there's a direct point for

7 them to -- is there an email?

8 Is there -- where would be the best place for

9 them to be in touch just to make sure that that pathway

10 is open?

11 MR. LOERA: Yes. So you could send me

12 directly an email, and I'll make sure they connect them

13 with the right folks.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So what we're going to do

15 is on May 27th, we're going to revisit this issue, and

16 we'll look at the actual -- we'll try to find this

17 Social Studies Periodic Assessment that is being

18 discussed, and we'll try to find the question that is

19 at issue because I think the reality is right now,

20 until we pull it up, we don't even know -- I mean

21 somebody told you apparently about it; right?

22 So until we've actually seen it with our own

23 eyes --

24 MR. ZIMMER: I've seen the (inaudible).

25 MS. GUTHRIE: I've seen it too.



39

1 MS. RATLIFF: You've seen it too?

2 MS. GUTHRIE: Yes.

3 MS. RATLIFF: And you saw that question about

4 stoning the adulterer?

5 MS. GUTHRIE: Yes.

6 MS. RATLIFF: All right.

7 So we will find that. We will bring it back.

8 We'll address it, and if someone in the district at

9 some point looked at it and was able to say, "This is

10 developmentally inappropriate because of cite, cite,

11 cite," then it will be great to have that too.

12 And then maybe we can discuss as well a little

13 bit about what is the process in terms of is -- is

14 there a district bulletin, or is there a link on

15 "lausd.net" the people go to. Something so we can just

16 have a little bit more sense of how that works.

17 Okay. And then I was hoping that in April --

18 at our April meeting, when we're talking about

19 assessment, if we can get some of that feedback

20 regarding the Periodic Assessments that you were

21 talking about, and you don't have to turn it into a

22 informative. Like, it could literally just be the

23 raw -- whatever you've got, we're happy to take a look

24 at.

25 I'm not asking people to spend time



40

1 synthesizing this feedback. I just think it would be

2 useful for us to take a look at it since it's related

3 to Periodic Assessments and specifically related to

4 kind of how students feel about it and teachers and so

5 forth.

6 And then you mentioned -- actually, I think it

7 had come back from here -- units of study and lessons

8 being developed by teachers.

9 And so one of the questions I had, and I'm

10 guessing we could talk about it in May as well, would

11 be where are all of the lessons going that teachers are

12 creating?

13 I know when I was at Senator's roundtable last

14 week, other districts are literally standing up and

15 saying, "Oh, we've got this portal, and teachers all

16 put their stuff here," and then teachers can come and

17 look at it and choose which one they want. They've

18 even got some sort of like kind of Yelpish-type thing

19 where people can say, "This is a great lesson" and

20 follow them and stuff.

21 So if we could get more information about how

22 LAUSD is doing that and how LAUSD is making these

23 lessons accessible to other teachers and giving them a

24 place to put it, that would be really useful. And I

25 think that would work out in May as it's related to



41

1 curriculum.

2 So unless there are any other questions about

3 this particular slide, I think we're ready to go on to

4 the next slide.

5 Okay.

6 MR. LOERA: Great.

7 This basically adds a little bit more to what

8 I've already shared. One of the paradigm shifts that

9 we're doing as a district in terms of how we even do

10 seam is that, one, we have our district-provided Common

11 Core Assessments that we've been discussing already.

12 Schools can identify their own Common Core aligned

13 assessments to utilize, as well as develop their own if

14 they wish to and are specifically written into our

15 guidelines.

16 And a school may choose from a variety of

17 options for providing assessments. They can make their

18 own copies in-house, use Repro from our own services

19 PC-ER within the district as well as be able to use

20 some on-line. In some cases, some of the schools do

21 that by putting in place their on-line system to do

22 that.

23 And so when we have this approach,

24 particularly in this year, this is the practice that

25 we're engaged in, and once again, we do not have a



42

1 central repository this year for data on how students

2 are doing in various parts of this assessments.

3 This is basically a year to look at our

4 practice to make sure we give people enough space to --

5 to learn and grow within the Common Core as we prepare

6 for the data coming back, like Dr. Lim mentioned

7 earlier, for the assessments year of 2014/'15.

8 MS. RATLIFF: But historically, weren't

9 Periodic Assessments -- my understanding when I was in

10 the classroom, even just last year was that we was --

11 we did submit the data somewhere and that centrally you

12 were able to look at how various schools were

13 performing in terms of the performance assessment.

14 Are you saying that this year, as in right

15 now, we are not collecting that information?

16 MR. LOERA: That is correct. Historically

17 we've had and used a data system that housed,

18 maintained, if you will, Periodic Assessment data from

19 assessments that were aligned to the 1997 California

20 standards. That practice ended last year. That

21 contract ended. We didn't renew it.

22 This year we do not have such a data system.

23 That's intentional, and the reason for that is we

24 really looked at the pros and cons in putting a system

25 in place this year knowing that when Smarter Balanced



43

1 goes into full implementation the year after, the

2 system will look different again, and so we felt that

3 the needs around training people to get used to changes

4 in the systems over two different years would distract

5 us from the actual work of the teaching and learning

6 that we think is most important.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So -- and do the -- I'm

8 guessing all the schools know this; right?

9 All the schools know that their Periodic

10 Assessments that they are giving to the students, that

11 that information is simply for them and not for the

12 Central District?

13 MR. LOERA: Yes, because it's not scored by

14 machine. It's all hand scored, so they have full

15 control of the students' work and who -- who can see it

16 and who doesn't.

17 MS. RATLIFF: But I guess one of the my

18 questions though is why are we asking them to even do

19 it in the sense that -- I mean I could understand --

20 earlier you'd said we have a commitment as a district

21 to doing these tests quarterly to see where our

22 students are at.

23 MR. LOERA: Yes.

24 MS. RATLIFF: I've never been a huge fan of

25 the Periodic Assessment, so, you know, I -- but -- but



44

1 that argument -- I hear that argument. I feel that

2 that's, you know, got some validity, but if the

3 teachers are already -- already have assessments that

4 allow them to see how their students are doing, why are

5 we asking them to do another assessment that we're not

6 even keeping track of the results?

7 MR. LOERA: So two answers to that.

8 First of all, the assessments themselves and

9 the ones that we've shared and made available, we

10 believe them to be very high quality assessments that

11 are actually aligned to the Common Core State

12 Standards. And the expertise required to develop high

13 quality assessments is -- requires a fairly specialized

14 skill set to be able to do that, and so by providing

15 that as a tool -- we give -- we take that away from a

16 teacher in terms of having to always having to -- to do

17 that as an individual and providing that as a tool set.

18 But, also, one of the components to doing an

19 assessment in this fashion is -- is what happens as a

20 result of doing the assessments, and that is that we

21 bring folks together to look at student work to

22 collaborate and to understand and learn from one

23 another and that piece is really important in -- within

24 a school in terms of school culture and establishing a

25 community that's really centered together around



45

1 improve instruction for all kids.

2 And so that practice is what we are continuing

3 to support and encourage across the board because we

4 want to make sure that we are promoting teachers to

5 collaborate and to do that.

6 Ultimately, of course, that will vary

7 throughout our district. We have some structures that

8 are built in by default in the district and some that

9 schools build on depending on what additional budgets

10 they have.

11 MR. ROSS: (Inaudible.)


13 MR. ROSS: Thank you.

14 Just a question or two to -- in effort to

15 clarify in my mind this piece on the district

16 assessment -- the Periodic Assessment.

17 This chart that you're speaking on is just for

18 2013/14?

19 MR. LOERA: That's correct.

20 MR. ROSS: All right. And so is it -- is it

21 optional or mandatory to do the assessment in 2013/'14?

22 MR. LOERA: So we expect that the assessments

23 are completed, so it's a mandatory --

24 MR. ROSS: So is there -- is there an

25 accountable piece so if a school elects to not do it,



46

1 would anybody know?

2 MR. LOERA: And so -- so the question for that

3 is if a school elects not to engage in an assessment,

4 that would not be supported by us, and so those that

5 would mostly likely would be the schools themselves, of

6 course. The instructional director that supports the

7 school. Those are conversations that we expect to be

8 occurring and taking place, so the accountability falls

9 there. Not so much about, you know, data or the

10 outcome, but in terms of accountability for process and

11 making sure that people are engaged in that.

12 MR. ROSS: But it's at a different level.

13 Is that the school level or the regional level

14 that it actually --

15 MR. LOERA: School level for individual cases

16 like that, but let me just say that I have not heard of

17 a similar case where that has become an issue where a

18 school --

19 MR. ROSS: The follow on is once the Smarter

20 Balanced Assessment's in place where there's Periodic

21 Assessments, will those be required, or will schools

22 continue to have the option to either do that or to do

23 something else?

24 MR. LOERA: So the Smarter Balanced Summative

25 End of Year Test will be required, and we haven't yet



47

1 determined whether the other will be required as well,

2 meaning the interim assessments throughout the year and

3 that really depends on the availability and a lot of

4 the logistical pieces as well as some of the nuts and

5 bolts of the system for us to be able to actually make

6 that determination.

7 MR. ROSS: Thank you.

8 MR. ZIMMER: So in theory, in terms of our

9 overall instructional quality, kind of our -- our --

10 our trajectory here, the Periodic Assessments could

11 have very, very significant, um, information if our

12 teaching and learning frameworks were really being or

13 were at the optimal stage of the rollout of the

14 teaching and learning frameworks.

15 Aren't periodics one of the things that the

16 administrator and the teacher collaboratively would

17 look at in terms of their process for building and

18 improvement both in tea- -- both in student learning

19 and outcomes, but also in the quality of instructional

20 delivery?

21 I mean isn't that one of the -- I mean isn't

22 this one of the discrete data points or indicators that

23 our teachers and administrators would look at

24 collaboratively in terms of areas of strength and areas

25 of improvement?



48

1 MR. LOERA: Yes.

2 MR. ZIMMER: And how far do you think we have

3 to go before we really are actualizing kind of -- I'm

4 not saying just for the periodics. I'm saying for -- I

5 mean, I share -- I think I'm -- I'm generally, as

6 somebody who has been more supportive of periodics,

7 mostly because I felt that the CSTs were so useless,

8 but if they -- if -- if we're truly going to, you know,

9 kind of realize the potential here, which is improving

10 student growth and achievement, don't we have to marry

11 much more formally our Periodic Assessments with the

12 teaching and learning frameworks, and how far do we

13 have to go before we're -- we'll be there?

14 MR. LOERA: Okay. So, historically, in -- in

15 their former use of Periodic Assessments, we built a

16 significant culture throughout the district around the

17 Periodic Assessments, the implementation, what it

18 means, and how it shall be used.

19 Really, for us, the strongest challenge is in

20 how do we leverage some of the positive parts of that

21 culture into the new paradigm under Common Core knowing

22 that the whole approach to do an assessment actually

23 changes when we look at a less granular level in

24 student learning than we used to look at on the

25 1997 California Standard. So that has implications for



49

1 how we do and look at assessments and how we prepare

2 our students to learn the new standards and,

3 ultimately, take these new assessments.

4 As it relates to making connections for the

5 teaching and learning framework, there are -- in the

6 training that we do in -- sponsor essentially around

7 Common Core implementation, we've narrowed it down to a

8 core set of elements out of the framework that we make

9 explicit connections to in support of that when we work

10 with principals and teachers so that they can see this

11 is a more coherent approach to the overall work between

12 the use of the teaching and learning the framework and

13 the implementation of the Common Core.

14 That being said, on the flip side, we also do

15 look at data that's coming out of the teaching and

16 learning framework in terms of what teachers are

17 identifying are their growth -- self-identified growth

18 areas, so better questioning techniques and supporting

19 students in discussions which are two parts of what

20 will really come out of the instructional shifts under

21 Common Core.

22 So we said we'd look at that data, and we'd

23 make informed decisions of how we continue to build

24 into ongoing professional development so that we make

25 those explicit connections and make it better overall.



50

1 MR. ZIMMER: Do you, in terms of -- of -- of

2 the Common Core trainings, workshops, all of that, are

3 you comfortable that the way it's rolling out right now

4 is able to achieve kind of a -- at least a baseline of

5 understanding amongst all of -- of our teachers, or do

6 you see some need for, you know, kind of a districtwide

7 training at some point?

8 MR. LOERA: So, you know, a little bit of an

9 editorial. I started here just over two years ago

10 in -- in this role, and when I got here is when the

11 budget was at a true, true low market or low whatever

12 want to call it, and the stresses around that were

13 enormous.

14 And so we had a couple people in the central

15 office who said we're going to help get this rolled out

16 in terms of where we are. Since then, the team has

17 both deepened their own understanding and expanded

18 their own reach into what we're actually able to

19 connect with -- at the teacher level.

20 So in terms of my comfort, when I look at what

21 their instructional team here and that the service

22 centers have been able to do with the resources they

23 have, I'm actually in awe of what they're able to do.

24 By no means am I saying that we do not have

25 still very huge needs in terms of the overall



51

1 implementation, and I think it's going to take time

2 more than we all maybe want to realize to get to where

3 we want to get to. That's always going to be a

4 process. It took us over a decade to get to -- to get

5 to where we got to over the '97 standards. It's going

6 to take us some time as well.

7 What we have to begin to really understand a

8 message is to our own communities around where we

9 expect our students to truly perform on these

10 assessments when the results come out. I think we --

11 we need to acknowledge that results and whatever the --

12 the proficiency levels are going to be called, that we

13 expect students -- a few more students to be proficient

14 under the Common Core State Standards, not because

15 they're learning any less, but because the standards

16 have changed and their expectations about what we do

17 is -- have really been increased.

18 And so it's our overall collective

19 responsibility to make sure that our students get to

20 those standards, and it's all of our collective

21 responsibility to make sure that people don't freak out

22 and overreact when the first data sub comes out.

23 MS. RATLIFF: (Inaudible). Then we're going

24 to move to the next slide.

25 MS. GUTHRIE: Okay. I'm speaking as a



52

1 department chair, and I'm looking at the assessments

2 for grade 8th coming up, and there are 40 separate

3 lessons that they're asking me to get through before

4 the kids even take the assessment. There aren't that

5 many days even left in our -- in the school year before

6 we get to the actual testing, so I'm just wondering how

7 these things -- where do department chairs come

8 together to talk about the needs of their department,

9 and where are the common teachers, the foot soldiers

10 getting to plug into this whole process?

11 Because for me this is very unrealistic, and

12 then I put an unrealistic expectation upon my students,

13 and it's not a good feeling.

14 MR. LOERA: Yeah. So as a district, we have

15 some structural built-ins in terms of the amount of

16 time folks get together and participate in professional

17 activities during the year, and then throughout the

18 district, depending on the schools that you're at,

19 different schools are able to build in additional time

20 for that teacher collaboration and the work that goes

21 into that.

22 That being said also, the last couple of

23 years, basically all of our training that we've

24 sponsored from central office anyway has been on a

25 voluntary basis, and so we have had a thousands of



53

1 teachers over the last couple of years come in and

2 participate and learning about what is it that the

3 Common Core Standards mean and how to begin to put them

4 into practice.

5 So keep in mind that any guidance that we're

6 putting out right now is recommended and not mandatory

7 in terms of the actual specifics in terms of content

8 and assessments that you're seeing. So that's why --

9 you see right up there on the third bullet, "Schools

10 may use their own or identify their own -- "and deviate

11 away from that," so this is our best thinking and

12 recommendations and that we know that that will vary by

13 school.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Mr. Lopez?

15 MR. LOPEZ: Actually, that's it. That's one

16 of the questions I had. I think that most schools

17 appreciate the flexibility and the options.

18 But I do have a question because a teacher --

19 my teachers ask this question quite often is, will they

20 have the option beyond this academic year?

21 So I also heard you say that when SBAC, the

22 Smarter Balanced finishes the design of the benchmark

23 assessments, that we may just use those, will teachers

24 continue to have the option of designing their own

25 locally, or will they be asked to do the Smarter



54

1 Balanced benchmark assessments afterwards?

2 If they are allowed to continue to design

3 their own, will they be given guidance?

4 How will schools be given guidance to design

5 that so that they're comparable to other schools that

6 are also designing their own? That there is some

7 consistency; that there's reliability of questions;

8 validity of scoring; that we all report the results the

9 same way or in a way that makes sense to the District

10 or even to the area.

11 So how -- how will that happen?

12 MR. LOERA: Great. So to answer your first

13 question about whether this level of flexibility will

14 continue on past this transition year, I don't have an

15 answer for you yet because a lot of this depends on

16 what Smarter Balanced is able to provide for us, and

17 whether their restrictions or flexibilities are

18 available to us within that system.

19 And so that information is slow coming to us,

20 so it's slow getting out as a result, so that's just

21 kind of the nature of where we are as part of being in

22 this overall transition.

23 In regards to your second question regarding

24 how do we maintain a high level of questions when

25 folks -- or assessment items or tests or whatever you



55

1 want to call them when schools or teachers elect to do

2 their own, and that's a great question because a lot of

3 folks do state that it's a harder process than they

4 originally anticipated once they started to actually

5 get into doing that process.

6 So the good news is that we do have tools

7 available for schools to use as rubrics to be able to

8 determine whether assessment items are of good quality

9 or not. And we actually use those rubrics from

10 Student Achievement Partners at "Achievethecore.org,"

11 and those rubrics are available there and available to

12 the public.

13 Those assessments rubrics are usable, and we

14 have shared them when schools ask for particular

15 guidance on creating those. We work with our

16 educational service centers so that they're aware of

17 those kinds of tools that are also available to schools

18 so that they can bring them into the overall picture.

19 Every school may take a different approach

20 in -- in doing that, so those are just some of the

21 things that we are providing.

22 MR. LOPEZ: Just to follow up a thought about

23 that. It's important to know because if students -- if

24 teachers are going to make decisions as to which way to

25 go, it makes -- it makes a difference whether they will



56

1 be given the option later on or not, and why will they

2 engage in developing a product that later they will not

3 be able to use, for example.

4 And, also, how do we know that there are these

5 tools that will assist us if we choose to design our

6 own benchmark assessments?

7 How do we access that?

8 Do we have to -- who keeps track of what

9 schools are being -- are doing that and what schools

10 are choosing to just go with the District assessments?

11 MR. LOERA: Yeah. So as it relates it this

12 year, as I said, we don't have a data system to keep

13 track of all that data. Normally we can actually look

14 and see who's participated; who hasn't participated and

15 that's the way to actually determine fidelity to

16 implementing the District's Periodic Assessments.

17 This year we don't have that -- such a data

18 system, so it's more anecdotal in nature in terms of

19 what instructional direct or conversations are

20 occurring with principals. In regards to accessing the

21 available tools -- I mean for those that are tuned in

22 to this committee right now, "Achievethecore.org" once

23 again has them there, and we do make them available

24 when people ask, and we also have made available --

25 made them available to ESC's so that they can be used



57

1 as the school principals need them.

2 So I think -- I think there was another part

3 to that question which I may need you to restate.

4 MR. LOPEZ: Yes. About knowing what -- what

5 the options are beyond this year so that they can make

6 better decisions about which option to take.

7 MR. LOERA: Yes. So we are really keeping

8 close tabs on what will be available. Like I said

9 earlier, just yesterday I followed up with CEDE to see

10 where and when interim assessments will be available,

11 so Smarter Balanced has been really good about issuing

12 out news flashes, and as they develop and come up with

13 new timelines, we can be able to begin to do that.

14 Clearly we can't communicate what's not --

15 hasn't been communicated to us yet either, so that is

16 something that we are looking at very closely to see if

17 there's another route we may have to take.

18 MS. RATLIFF: So -- okay.

19 Dr. Muller, but it has to be fast.

20 MR. MULLER: It will be.

21 So that doesn't really clarify anything.

22 Is it the intention of the District to

23 implement the interim assessments, if not next year,

24 then the year after or whenever SBAC has them together?

25 MR. LOERA: Yes. So I -- I thought it was



58

1 clear.

2 Yes. So our intent is if Smarter Balanced has

3 them available.

4 MR. MULLER: And to make them mandatory?

5 MR. LOERA: To make the process mandatory.

6 Correct.

7 MS. RATLIFF: The process.

8 What do you mean by --

9 MR. LOERA: (Unintelligible.)

10 MR. MULLER: -- students taking those specific

11 assessments in a particular series?

12 MR. LOERA: So we'll be -- the way that

13 Smarter Balanced will most likely create these

14 assessments is that they'll be blocks of assessments by

15 which Smarter Balanced will break them up. Then those

16 blocks of assessments could be folded in to create an

17 interim assessment that somebody would be able to use.

18 So as we learn more about how the Smarter

19 Balanced System will ultimately be designed is how we

20 will then make a recommendation and/or determine to

21 what extent pieces would be mandatory.

22 MR. LOERA: Okay. So as we move forward, I

23 just to clarify regarding this slide.

24 So it says:

25 "Schools may choose from the



59

1 following assessment options.

2 District provided CCSS aligned

3 assessments."

4 So this is a Periodic Assessment provided by

5 the District; right?

6 A Correct.

7 Q "Identify other CCSS aligned

8 assessments. Develop your CCII

9 aligned assessments."

10 So my understanding had been that pilot

11 schools could develop their own assessments, but not

12 every single school could develop their own assessment.

13 Is this stating -- is this basically implying

14 it's the pilot schools that can create their own

15 assessments, or can every school -- every traditional

16 public school in the district create their own

17 assessment should they have so desire to do so this

18 year?

19 MR. LOERA: It's geared to every single

20 school.

21 MS. RATLIFF: And how did they get that --

22 that -- was there -- like was there a principals' tool

23 kit?

24 What was there?

25 MR. LOERA: Reference guide regarding



60

1 bureaucratic assessments that were put out in the fall,

2 the language was included in there. I think it was

3 around October or so.

4 MS. RATLIFF: Could I get a copy of that at

5 some point?

6 MR. LOERA: Sure.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you.

8 And the reason I think it's important is

9 because I'm concerned that the information, for

10 whatever reason, didn't actually get out to all of the

11 schools because I had schools complaining to me about

12 these Periodic Assessments. If I'd been able to turn

13 and say "Well, then, make your own," I would have been

14 happy to do that. I didn't get the sense from them

15 that they even knew that that was an option.

16 MR. LOERA: I smile because sometimes -- I

17 alluded to our culture earlier about where were are as

18 a district with Periodic Assessments, and our culture

19 is so strong around that, that even when they see it in

20 black and white, they almost don't want to believe it,

21 but it's in black and white.

22 MS. RATLIFF: And then the next section says:

23 "Schools may choose from a variety

24 of options for providing the

25 assessments: make copies in-house;



61

1 use Repro for costs; on-line.

2 And so later on I'd asked, you know, when we

3 take a look at the budget, maybe we could talk about

4 some of the costs involved, but I do want us to move on

5 to the "Early Literacy" slide.

6 MR. LOERA: Great. So if we can -- one more.

7 So we'll be spending some time around the

8 DIBELS assessment in elementary school, and it's around

9 early literacy. We also have assessments that are used

10 in grades K through 2 and then 3rd grade for the

11 beginning of the year test. So that's the DIBELS

12 assessments that we use that are give three times in

13 the year.

14 The reclassification for K-2 is based on

15 DIBELS next in writing and the writing prompts that are

16 given at the elementary level. So these are

17 assessments that are short, one or two minute

18 assessments that are given at the beginning, middle and

19 end of year for K through 2 and at the beginning of the

20 year for 3rd grade.

21 So the next slide goes -- you know, I think we

22 touched on a lot of this already, but the two writing

23 assessments for the periodics that are grades through

24 5 and 6th grade, and then for Math we have the

25 Kindergarten checklist for beginning of the year, end



62

1 of the year and the performance tasks that are given

2 twice.

3 Performance tasks are more extensive

4 assessments that measure a bigger picture of what

5 students have actually learned. Similarly, in the

6 English Language Arts, we have that -- it's looks like

7 a typo there at the bottom, so I apologize.

8 If we can take it to the next slide, this

9 actually points out -- it maps out a timeline for

10 elementary assessments for this year in the spring so

11 that we can see the assessment windows and when this

12 would be taking place.

13 So I want to emphasize that what you see on

14 the screen are assessment windows. They're not

15 necessarily the day that students will be taking a test

16 on that particular day. So -- and there's one small

17 correction I want to make there on the Math 6

18 assessment.

19 In March, that window actually will open up on

20 March 10th, and we'll be notifying schools about that

21 change in date, but we have the Physical Fitness Test

22 that will be taking place during March. Dr. Lim

23 mentioned the California Science Test with 5th grade

24 and so that's taking place in April. You can see the

25 dates up there. And then the Smarter Balanced Field



63

1 Test taking place around the same time.

2 And then we also will be using an old

3 District's Periodic Assessment for the students that

4 are English Learners that are below basic and far below

5 basic in 2013 for the purposes of reclassification.

6 So, for instance, Dr. Lim mentioned earlier

7 that we will not be receiving any data back from

8 Smarter Balanced and, yet, we still have an Ed Code

9 legal requirement to make sure that we have an

10 instrument by which our EL students can reclassify.

11 And so the instrument we are going to be

12 using, it's an empirically-based assessment, is

13 Periodic Assessments for BB and below basic students

14 who are ELs. Students that got a basic or above, their

15 score is able to rollover, and we can use that for next

16 year. But that again, even though the window looks

17 large on the bottom, the number of students that are

18 participating there overall in the whole district is

19 about 40,000 students or so. So it's a few --

20 depending on the size of the school, it could be a

21 relatively small population, but in some cases where

22 there's a higher concentration, it might be a little

23 bigger.

24 MS. RATLIFF: I just want to make a quick

25 comment about the Physical Fitness Test.



64

1 I know that historically at San Pedro when

2 they were given the Physical Fitness Test, there was a

3 real lack of clarity, I would say, amongst the teachers

4 even in terms of, like, how to conduct the test, so I

5 was just wondering -- I don't know that you would know

6 of the top of your head how the test is conducted,

7 but -- and maybe that's been cleared up, but if there

8 could just be some sort of clarity in terms of the

9 school sites knowing how this test is suppose to be

10 conducted, that would be really useful, meaning that I

11 think some people were like, "The students just have to

12 just keep going around the track." Other people were

13 like, "No. The students are supposed to be like

14 jogging." Some were like, "They can jog and walk."

15 Some were like, "As soon as they walk, it's over."

16 There was a real lack of consensus, and, you

17 know, I'm willing to just admit it. Like, we just came

18 to a consensus at the school, but I think that it would

19 be wise to make sure that whatever the rules and

20 regulations are is clear cross the district because I

21 think otherwise the scores are a little bit -- that's

22 it. We just need to get some clarity out there on the

23 field, I think.

24 MR. LOERA: Would it help if I send you the

25 guidance that we have for the elementary Physical



65

1 Fitness Test?

2 MS. RATLIFF: Sure. And I'm happy to look at

3 it, but I mean it's a little late now because I'm not

4 out there, but I still think that the issue to me was

5 we were all hardworking, determined teachers, and there

6 was a lack of clarity at our site, and then when we

7 sought guidance from our principal, I don't -- I don't

8 think he had a real -- and he's a fantastic principal,

9 but I just think there was a lack of focus on this. I

10 don't think the Physical Fitness Test was what LAUSD

11 was all about, and so I don't think we were pushing

12 that message, and I just think it would be useful, if

13 it hasn't already occurred, for us to make sure that

14 the school sites are aware of what -- how the test

15 should be conducted.

16 MR. LOERA: Okay. So we'll go to the next

17 slide, and -- so anyway we talked a lot about the

18 Periodic Assessments already. I'm going to go ahead

19 and move us to the next one. Next slide, yes. Even

20 secondary. Okay. So -- oh, one more.

21 So "District Assessments -- Middle School

22 6th Grade Mathematics Assessment." Now, we do have a

23 whole entire Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment

24 Committee meeting that was going to focus on the

25 mathematics pathways, so we'll go into a lot more



66

1 detail about what we're doing with math and -- but as

2 it relates to assessments, what will be new this year

3 that we have not done in the past is to give all

4 6th grade students a placement assessment to be

5 implemented in March. The window for that will open up

6 on March 10th, and the purpose of that is to actually

7 determine -- help determine, because we do not believe

8 in a single measure for student placement, so we

9 believe in a multiple measure approach, and this will

10 be one of the multiple measures. But the purpose of it

11 is to determine placement in either a traditional

12 pathway in middle school or an accelerated pathway in

13 middle school in mathematics, and so that is something

14 that's new.

15 The schools that are in Phase 1 of the

16 Common Core Technology Project that have a 6th grade,

17 mostly middle schools, in some cases K through 6th,

18 will be taking that assessment on-line as well, which

19 speaks to Dr. Lim's shifts earlier on the technology

20 that we're moving more to computerized testing.

21 The next one.

22 MR. KAYSER: How many days out of a school

23 year are affected by testing?

24 MR. LOERA: I don't have that total number of

25 days that I can answer that for you right now.



67

1 MS. RATLIFF: Could you answer at another

2 meeting? Maybe the next meeting?

3 MR. LOERA: Sure. Yes.


5 MR. LOERA: The next slide has the details on

6 "Middle School 8th Grade Mathematics Assessment."

7 So historically we have offered an

8 end-of-course assessment for students that complete

9 Algebra 1 in the 8th grade, and we had used it to

10 determine whether our students in middle school who

11 complete Algebra 1 earn high school credit in high

12 school.

13 So we have phased out the end-of-course test

14 because that test was aligned to 1997 standards and

15 have revamped that test for it to be aligned to the

16 Common Core State Standards. And the testing window

17 for that assessments will be May 19th through May 30th,

18 and this assessment will be on-line only. All schools

19 will be doing it that way. They will not be a paper

20 and pencil.

21 And the purpose of that test is to -- to

22 determine whether students will earn high school credit

23 for having completed Algebra 1 while they were enrolled

24 in middle school as well as to determine whether

25 students will need additional support in their



68

1 mathematics courses as they enter high school.

2 MS. RATLIFF: Ms. Chavez?

3 MS. CHAVEZ: Does a parent have -- my question

4 is have the parents been informed of this 6th grade

5 assessment which surely determines the course -- you

6 know, if their child will take advanced math, and have

7 they been informed of the 8th grade assessment since

8 they're around the corner?

9 MR. LOERA: So we're in the process of doing

10 that, and so those that will be notifying the parents

11 will be coming from the school site. So the school

12 principals will be notifying them as we notify the

13 principals around the details.

14 Memo 6228 just was released about couple of

15 weeks ago that actually outlines the specific pathways

16 under Common Core. We will have two additional guides

17 that speak to each assessment. One will be around the

18 math 6 assessment that goes into detail there, and then

19 the other will be on the math 8 assessment.

20 And the reason we have them in three different

21 guides is that we recognize the sense of urgency in

22 communicating that to your point about getting parents

23 aware and schools aware. At the same time, these

24 assessments are also getting developed, so as we

25 complete them, they will be made available. And as far



69

1 as getting all the details out, that will be

2 forthcoming as well.

3 MS. RATLIFF: Well, I have a question about

4 that.

5 So it says -- so all the 6th grade students

6 are going to take a placement assessment implemented in

7 March, and the testing window is March 10th through

8 March 28th. This is for the 6 graders.

9 So I guess one of my concerns is, because we

10 have -- we've been getting so many letters as Board

11 members about this concern about "My child is gifted,"

12 and "The Common Core hurts my child" and things like

13 that, I hope we can address that eventually, but, um --

14 but it seems to me that perhaps one of these -- perhaps

15 some -- some of these are coming out of these

16 perhaps -- there's lack of information perhaps related

17 to these assessments and so forth.

18 So when I look at the slide and it says,

19 "Middle School 6th Grade Math Assessment: Purpose,

20 determine placement through traditional math pathway or

21 an accelerated math pathway," to me that says if I had

22 a 6th grader, I would want my child in the accelerated

23 math pathway.

24 "How do I get my child in the accelerated math

25 pathway, and how come I didn't know about this



70

1 assessment before so that I could have been preparing

2 my student" -- "my child for this math test?

3 So I'm a little concerned that we have not

4 communicated to the parents, I think, about this yet

5 because it says -- you say we haven't even communicated

6 to the principals yet.

7 Is there a reason why we have to do it

8 March 10th and March 28th and not perhaps later on in

9 the year?

10 MR. LOERA: Yes, and there's several reasons

11 for that. The biggest reason is we need to get the

12 data back to get it to schools to actually use for

13 actual placement. And so when we give -- it's a new

14 test, so once the testing is completed, we have to do

15 the analysis to determine what are the actual standard

16 setting that we have to establish to determine actual

17 performance.

18 MS. RATLIFF: So the 6th grade assessment is

19 not a computerized assessment.

20 It's not on-line?

21 MR. LOERA: So it's a computerized assessment

22 only for Phase 1 Common Core Technology Project

23 schools, so a small population. Mostly it will be on

24 paper and pencil.

25 MS. RATLIFF: Why, if we have the



71

1 technology -- if -- if we're going to have the devices

2 in place in April, why couldn't all of this -- all our

3 6th graders take the assessment -- well, why does it

4 have to be in March if we can do it on-line?

5 I guess my question is, if we can somehow do

6 the assessment on-line, why does it have to be in

7 March?

8 I understand that we would need to -- if it's

9 paper/pencil, I can understand we absolutely need

10 plenty of time to synthesize the data, but if all our

11 students could take it because we have the devices at

12 that point at every single school site, why not allow

13 all our students to take it on-line and that would

14 allow the data to be uploaded more quickly and then

15 schools could use that information to do placement?

16 MR. LOERA: So the answer to that is we need

17 more time. So we're working with a six-week time

18 window that we're going to need after the assessment is

19 done before we can make the assessment available, so --

20 I mean the data available for schools because schools

21 are building their Master Schedules, and they're

22 building -- putting their students into classes, and

23 that process begins in the spring.

24 The later we push assessments back, the harder

25 it is for them to actually build their Master Schedule



72

1 to support what the data actually tells them to do.

2 MS. RATLIFF: So when do schools normally --

3 because I -- I mean it was a lot easier in elementary

4 school.

5 When do the schools do this Master Plan

6 creation?

7 MR. LOERA: So schools that are really

8 proactive and on it begin that process in January or

9 even before in terms of establishing whether the major

10 high level program changes that are going to be taking

11 place based on the available data going into that time

12 frame.

13 So each month after January, their process

14 gets more intensified, and schools that are really on

15 it and will have that done and mostly programmed by the

16 time school starts to end, at least on a tentative

17 schedule.

18 Now, there are always going to be adjustments

19 when schools come back, and right before, the

20 administrators have a few days before school begins to

21 continue to refine and make adjustments, and those

22 often continue well into well after the year has

23 started, but we always try to give as much of the data

24 that's, what are called, the assistant principals, the

25 secondary counseling services, the administrators that



73

1 build these Master Schedules enough time to

2 appropriately build their Master so they can truly make

3 it around student need.

4 MS. RATLIFF: So -- but currently, this

5 6th grade assessment, you said we need six weeks to get

6 the data -- did you say we need six weeks to get the

7 data back?

8 MR. LOERA: Correct.

9 MS. RATLIFF: So whether they do it on-line or

10 not, it takes six weeks to get the data back?

11 MR. LOERA: Yes. So that's because we have to

12 do a fair amount of standard setting, and it's a new

13 assessment. It's not one that we've had in place for a

14 long time that we already know what the performance

15 cutoffs are going to be.

16 MS. RATLIFF: So then why are we using a new

17 one?

18 I mean I guess that's my question.

19 If this is such an important assessment, why

20 are we changed it at this point?

21 MR. LOERA: We're not changing it. We're

22 actually introducing a new assessment.

23 MS. RATLIFF: Right. Why are we introducing a

24 new assessment?

25 Why wouldn't we use the old assessment?



74

1 Is the old assessment flawed?

2 MR. LOERA: Because we have new standards,

3 so -- first of all, we didn't have an old one for this

4 particular purpose.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So 6th graders weren't given a

6 placement assessment before?


8 MS. RATLIFF: So this is the first year we're

9 giving them a placement assessment?


11 MS. RATLIFF: And we're letting them know now?


13 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Now, is there any reason

14 why -- so it says here the testing window could be from

15 March 10th to March 28th.

16 If the devices are getting sent in the end of

17 March and they'll be there April, is there any reason

18 why we couldn't do it at the beginning of April and,

19 therefore, give the opportunity for all the students to

20 do this assessments on-line versus some of them doing

21 paper/pencil and some of them doing it on-line?

22 MR. LOERA: Well, it's like -- it's what I

23 said before is that we need the time to be able to

24 actually do the standard set -- standard setting and

25 generate the results that make sense that ultimately



75

1 schools will use so that we can give it to them in

2 May or whenever the day comes forward so that they can

3 have some time to actually start planning and building

4 their schedules for the year.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So they're going to take the

6 assessment, and then in May, we're going to give them

7 the data?

8 MR. LOERA: I forget the exact date, but it's

9 around early May.

10 MS. RATLIFF: All right. So we're going to

11 give them the data in early May, and so it's going to

12 take several -- it's going to take weeks to do this --

13 what do you call it?

14 MR. LOERA: Standard setting.

15 MS. RATLIFF: Standard setting.

16 And I guess I just need a little clarity on,

17 like, what is this?

18 And the only reason I find this important is

19 because, literally, we're looking at a testing window

20 that starts March 10th, and we've been getting

21 complaints about an issue that I think is related to

22 this, so I would like as much clarity out there as

23 possible related to this.

24 So what does standard setting involve?

25 Like how many people -- is it people?



76

1 Is it like do we send it somewhere?

2 How does this work?

3 MR. LOERA: I don't have the information for

4 you on that. That's something that we work with a

5 vendor to do that. They have the professionals, the

6 psychometricians, whoever it is, involved in doing

7 that, but that's done outside the District. That's not

8 done here.

9 MS. RATLIFF: So we've hired a new vendor this

10 year to give us this -- to do this assessment. We've

11 hired them. We're going to have the assessment, and

12 then they're going to give us back the data in

13 six weeks?


15 MS. RATLIFF: Is that a normal -- is that how

16 it normally works?

17 MR. LOERA: For this kind of a process, to the

18 best of my knowledge, yes.




22 MR. ROSS: Yeah. Just -- just one just based

23 on my background in statistical analysis, this is going

24 backwards. If they've got a test that has not been,

25 you know, standardized, you have no standards or



77

1 anything like that, then basically what will happen,

2 kids will take the test. The test will be submitted.

3 The data will be entered into computers, and then

4 they'll probably develop like frequency distributions

5 so that you get a sense of where the kids are

6 performing, you know.

7 And so you can look at who the kids are going

8 to different bands to see if it's bell-shaped or

9 whatever.

10 And so the question is -- I mean where is the

11 cutoff, you know, because you can't say just because

12 the score is low, that it's poor, you know, on the

13 front end of this. So you need that in order to

14 basically say, well, here's our distribution, and now

15 we're going to establish cutoffs in terms of whatever,

16 in terms of whether you should go into a higher math

17 track, or you should go into another kind of track or

18 something.

19 But if you don't have that in advance, you

20 know, somebody's got to sit down -- and not just

21 somebody because it shouldn't be just an individual.

22 It should be a host of individuals. Maybe experts who

23 can basically, you know, along with the practitioners

24 who can say, "This is what we think it is," and it's

25 not totally objective. There's some subjectivity to a



78

1 great degree in that as well.

2 MS. RATLIFF: Right. I have -- I have -- I

3 have some concerns about this assessments, and so what

4 I would like to do is obviously take Scott Folsom's

5 question, but I would also like to, if it would be

6 possible, to please get the contract that was related

7 to this vendor sent to my office, and we'll just take a

8 look at it and see if we have any, like, questions and

9 so on just to get a sense of what was the plan here.

10 I'm sure it was already approved like a long

11 time ago, but that would be nice to take a look at.

12 Scott?

13 MR. FOLSOM: All right.

14 Two things roll back to the previous things

15 is, as a Health Commissioner from California State

16 P.T.A., I'm shocked about the fact that the elementary

17 fitness grant piece isn't rolled out. This is, as far

18 as I'm concerned, one of the most important tests we

19 take here in this district, if not the most, and I

20 would hope that what Ms. Ratliff described as kind of

21 hiccups in the implementation and the rollout and stuff

22 like that gets fixed, and I will, you know, I'll rattle

23 cages in this building and see if I can get the people

24 from P.E. to focus on that part.

25 But this piece, the six month -- the 6th grade



79

1 assessment worries me a little bit. It -- it -- you

2 know, I -- back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I

3 was a kid, in England they had the program called the

4 "11-Plus" where at age 11 -- these kids are 12 -- you

5 took a test that pretty much set the entire future of

6 your career as to what kind of school you were going to

7 get going forward. And this kind of -- this isn't that

8 be this reeks of it a bit.

9 Kids go into either a traditional math pathway

10 or an accelerated math pathway, and I and parents and

11 everybody and, I think, teachers need to be assured

12 that this isn't a permanent track that you're on and

13 that, you know, it's not some kids go up, and some kids

14 go down. I need to know, every year after that, that

15 kids have a way that once they kind of did a little bit

16 better then they should have can go into, you know, the

17 basic math. That we're not locked into that track

18 because I don't want it. It just -- that worries me.

19 And then on the other --

20 MS. RATLIFF: (Inaudible.)

21 MR. FOLSOM: I'm sorry?


23 MR. FOLSOM: Okay. Well, I'm going to throw

24 out my third thought, and then you can jump all over

25 me.



80

1 On the Algebra 1 Test, I like this idea

2 because it proves that kids who've taken Algebra 1

3 early before they were in high school get the high

4 school credit that deserve it, and I just want to -- so

5 the kids will get a grade in that class that's based on

6 teacher assessment; correct?

7 But they can't -- that -- that class won't

8 count if they don't pass this test; is that right?

9 It won't count as Algebra 1 in high school?

10 MR. LOERA: It will not count to get the high

11 school numerical credit. Correct.

12 MR. LOPEZ: As a follow-up question to that

13 actually, I think it's very important for parents to

14 know that that's the case because when we get them at

15 the high school, they will want to -- they will want

16 the counselors and the teachers to answer "Why is it

17 that my student is not getting Algebra 1 credit because

18 they already took it at the middle school, and they

19 passed the course."

20 If they receive -- so will a student be able

21 to receive a passing grade and fail the test and they

22 will be told, "You still cannot get credit in high

23 school for the class"?

24 How will that be communicated to the parents

25 when and -- and when -- and how will they be informed



81

1 about the options thereafter; right?

2 So I'm assuming if they do pass the test,

3 they'll go to Geometry or whatever the course -- the

4 new course title may be. That's one thing.

5 The other thing is, will the standard setting

6 be the same process for this Algebra 1 test?

7 Because the window closes May 30th, and if

8 there's six weeks required, that means that the

9 information will not get back to the high schools until

10 after counselors leave for summer which means that it

11 will be almost impossible to create a Master Schedule

12 that accommodates for the kids who pass and don't pass.

13 Counselors do not stay beyond the teacher

14 time. They're on the teacher's schedule.

15 So will school be provided with resources to

16 bring counselors back to modified schedules?

17 How will that work?

18 A Okay. So I don't know if I got all the

19 question. You guys can remind me if I miss one?

20 So a lot of this, I believe, will be more

21 clear as we get into the more deeper conversation

22 around mathematics and how all this really comes into

23 play because the context that's missing here in terms

24 of why we actually are giving the 6th grade

25 assessments, for instance, is that in the way that most



82

1 school districts and states are implementing the

2 overall Common Core transition, particularly as it

3 relates to mathematics. There are identified points of

4 time where students are given opportunities to

5 accelerate. Not in a track system because they're at

6 multiple times.

7 That being said, principals, counselors need

8 objective criteria to be able to help make those

9 decisions. So in providing and creating this type of

10 assessment is one measure towards being able to make

11 that determination. Not the only, and we believe in a

12 multiple measure approach.

13 So either we do something like this, or we

14 don't give anything to schools for them to be more

15 subjective about, and so this is -- the goal here is to

16 provide more objectivity about -- with merit in terms

17 of how and when students would be eligible or more

18 ready, I should say, for the accelerated pathway.

19 As we discussed the Algebra 1 piece, the

20 Algebra 1 is correct. The main purpose there as stated

21 here is to determine whether students will get the high

22 school credit. And so while your concerns are very

23 valid as well in terms of being able to have data back

24 in time, and you voiced the same concerns that were

25 brought up also in terms of moving the Math 6 test



83

1 back, that that data will be com- -- will be coming

2 later, not unlike when we used to have the CST data

3 coming pack late. That always has been a challenge for

4 us as a system and for us as former principals to make

5 adjustments in the Master regarding that old data?

6 So to answer your other question about whether

7 we are giving additional time for counselors and to do

8 that kind of work, we are not. That people will have

9 to plan for that as parts of their overall Master

10 Schedule planning.

11 MS. RATLIFF: Go ahead, Steve.

12 MR. ZIMMER: Let me just make sure I

13 understand.

14 Does the division share Principal Lopez's

15 concern as I think I understand it, and he could

16 correct me, that when the assessments come back, there

17 might be a significant amount of reprogramming that

18 might have to be done?

19 Was that one of your concerns?

20 MR. LOERA: That may occur like it occurs

21 every year with CST data coming back late in the year

22 and adjustments are made as well.

23 MR. ZIMMER: Well, help me.

24 How do we -- how do we make what -- when and

25 where do we change schedules based on CST data?



84

1 MR. LOERA: So whether a student needs a

2 support class for mathematics. So, for example, we

3 could an Algebra 1 core class by itself or an

4 Algebra 1 class with a support class.

5 Depending on how students perform on CST, we

6 have established criteria for guiding schools on when

7 to provide an additional support class to compliment

8 their core Algebra 1 course, so that's one example.

9 MR. ZIMMER: Okay. How often did that happen

10 when -- how often was there mismatches between course

11 academic performance and test performance?

12 You -- one would expect that there'd be a

13 correlation between student performance in the academic

14 class and testing performance.

15 Were there often mismatches with the CST, and

16 do you expect there might be mismatches based on -- on

17 this -- this assessment?

18 MR. LOERA: So we expect there will be some

19 corrections that need to be made. As a former

20 principal, I can say that the Master Schedule needs to

21 be and must be fluid.

22 MR. ZIMMER: Of course. I wouldn't --

23 wouldn't argue that -- that -- that it wouldn't need to

24 be, but I guess -- but what I'm trying to focus in on

25 is, do we anticipate there would be significant numbers



85

1 of the -- there are always in the Master, given the

2 more information that you get as you get closer to the

3 year, there's always fluidity and flexibility and give

4 within the schedule. We know all to well during the

5 first two or three weeks of any semester, that happens

6 as well.

7 Are we anticipating based on these new

8 assessments that there would be -- there would need to

9 be even more flexibility than -- than -- or do we think

10 it would be about the same?

11 MR. LOERA: Let me be clear on when the data

12 would be available.

13 So the data for the Algebra 1 results will be

14 available before schools come back on -- to the fall

15 semester, and there is some time there were schools are

16 making their adjustments that they need to make to

17 refine the Master or do whatever programmatic changes.

18 So I want to be clear that this not the same

19 as getting the data a week or two into the semester

20 after everything's started.

21 MR. ZIMMER: Understood.

22 You've seen this assessment, the new one

23 that's being -- that -- that we've contracted for?

24 MR. LOERA: So I believe it's a work in

25 progress.



86

1 MR. ZIMMER: It's a still a work in progress.

2 MR. LOERA: It's still in development,

3 correct.

4 MR. LOPEZ: Just a point of clarification for

5 me is, I think the biggest difference between this test

6 and previous tests, I happen to have an outstanding

7 APSCS, so I'm -- you know, I understand the development

8 of the Master Schedule and how we worked together as a

9 team, but the biggest difference between this year --

10 this plan and previous plans is this the first time we

11 have a test that actually decides placement.

12 In the past, we had guidance through CST, and

13 we used grade distribution reports and things like

14 that, and we articulated with the middle school, and so

15 we -- we shared as much information as possible with

16 the middle school, but there was nothing definitive

17 that said the student will either take -- get credit or

18 not. This is -- this is the difference, and so this

19 can significantly have many changes beyond the regular

20 changes that we already are very proficient about

21 dealing with than -- than what has been experienced in

22 the past.

23 MR. LOERA: So let me clarify. It's -- it's

24 not -- it's not new. We're changing the assessment.

25 We've had an end-of-course test for Algebra 1



87

1 historically, even through 2013. We had procedures in

2 place to be able to give high school credit depending

3 on how students scored or not. So for that particular

4 purpose, it's just a change in assessment; the

5 assessment now aligned to CCSS implementation.

6 So it's not new. The process is the same.

7 It's just a different test.

8 MR. LOPEZ: The process or the purpose

9 (unintelligible)?

10 MR. LOERA: The purpose is not new either. We

11 have existing guidelines around using CST data for

12 placement in mathematics as well.

13 MS. RATLIFF: Since -- since our next meeting

14 is going to be about math, why don't we go ahead and

15 readdress this at that meeting so maybe by that meeting

16 we could learn a little bit more about the test, a

17 little bit more about, you know, any bulletins or memos

18 or whatever that might give guidance to principals and

19 so forth. Maybe something that shows like, okay, this

20 is what it was before; this is what it's going to be

21 now, not much different, and maybe something about also

22 if -- I'm guessing that historically if parents wanted

23 to or students wanted to contest their placement or

24 whether they were able to get credit, they were able to

25 do that historically, weren't they?



88

1 MR. LOERA: That's --

2 MS. RATLIFF: So if I took -- let's say I was

3 an A student in Algebra -- right? -- but for some

4 reason I bombed the CSTs or whatever as it relates to

5 Algebra, would there have been a way for me to appeal

6 so that I could have still received credit, or did I

7 just "too bad. You don't get credit. You may have

8 received an A in the class, but because of your test

9 score, we're not going to give you high school credit"?

10 And you don't have to answer now. We can talk

11 about that in March if that's okay with you.

12 MR. LOERA: Perfectly fine.

13 MR. MULLER: I would like to add a couple of

14 other items to that list for next time as well.

15 No. 1, I'd like to know the scope of the

16 assessment; exactly how much of the Algebra curriculum

17 is covered in that assessment. I would also like to

18 know the duration of the assessment, some of the

19 technical elements. And then most specifically,

20 because this is a -- one of the assessments of Destiny,

21 I would like to know how our standard English Learners,

22 English Learners and Special Education students are

23 receiving appropriate supports so that their skills

24 with Algebra are being assessed and not necessarily

25 their -- their command of other elements or their



89

1 ability to access the test.

2 MS. RATLIFF: I think those are reasonable.

3 Sure.

4 Okay. So let's go on to the next slide.

5 MR. LOERA: Keep going.

6 So here's the high school time frame that maps

7 out what this will look like in high school. So

8 there's the Physical Fitness on the top. The

9 California High School Exit Exam taking place on

10 March 18th and 19th, and then the Reclassification

11 Assessment, which is one of our PAs being used in

12 grade 9. Only grade 9. Grade 10 will be using the

13 CAHSEE exam for purposes of reclassification.

14 Then you can see the Smarter Balanced window,

15 AP exams which are up there May 5th through the 16th.

16 Then there's a makeup CAHSEE as well for a smaller

17 population. And the 10th grade CST in Science, which

18 for high school is a live science test, is being given

19 the month of April for the most part, and then there's

20 the 11th grade CST given there towards the -- the very

21 end of the year, May 19th through the 30th. And that

22 includes the EAP which is the test that's being used to

23 determine college readiness by the CSU system, so

24 students that score above their benchmark, they're not

25 required to take remedial Math and English and/or Math



90

1 when they start the university system.

2 So that's built into the 11th grade CST, and

3 the reason we're giving the CST in 11th grade is it's

4 one of those NCLB required tests, and it also happens

5 to serve multiple purposes which includes the inclusion

6 of the EAP in there for ELA and Mathematics.

7 So I spoke a little bit earlier about what

8 we're using for reclassification, so we're going to be

9 using PA Assessment No. 3 for grades 3 through 5;

10 PA Assessment No. 2 for grades 6.

11 And so once again, this is a Periodic

12 Assessment, and this Periodic Assessment is not one of

13 our new Common Core aligned assessments, but it's an

14 assessment that we have been using historically. And

15 the students that we'll be testing are students that

16 scored far below basic or below basic last year or

17 simply don't have a CST score because they came in from

18 another state or things of that nature. And all ELs

19 who scored basic or above in the 2012/13 school year

20 will bank their scores into this year for purposes of

21 reclassification.

22 Schools are going to be receiving pre-slugged

23 answer sheets, and what that means is that those are

24 answer sheets that have students' names on them, and

25 they will be pre-bubbled in to help in the



91

1 implementation of this activity.

2 So that's coming up very shortly, and the

3 testing window for the PAs is March is 17th through

4 May 23rd. It's a very big window to give schools as

5 much room to be able to get that done as possible.

6 MR. MULLER: Okay. And regarding the --

7 the -- this is testing for reclassification for this

8 year; correct?


10 MR. MULLER: Okay. Also, what is the

11 direction for reclassification testing for the year

12 after?

13 MR. LOERA: That's a great question,

14 Dr. Muller. We are working with and waiting for the

15 State to see if they ultimately are going to be given

16 guidance regarding the use of the Smarter Balanced

17 Assessment results for the purposes of reclassification

18 or whether school districts are going to be left up to

19 their own, like this year, to establish that

20 empirically based assessment for next year.

21 So we don't know yet what the State will

22 provide in terms of guidance for next year. We are

23 clear about what it's been for this year.

24 MR. MULLER: Okay. Is it possible to get that

25 communicated to schools, that it's the lack of movement



92

1 on the States part that leaves us without direction,

2 that way it's clear who's responsible for the steerage

3 and when we might likely know?

4 MR. LOERA: Yes.

5 MS. CHAVEZ: The District English Learner

6 Advisory Counsel parents, have they already been

7 presented the new reclassification?

8 MR. LOERA: I know that our

9 Multilingual/Multiculture Department was working with

10 our parent group. I believe that may have occurred,

11 and I think it did, but I don't have a hundred percent

12 answer. I'm pretty sure it did recently.


14 MR. LOERA: Sure. I think that happened a

15 couple weeks ago, but I need to confirm.

16 Okay. So the last slide here before I let

17 Dr. Lim back up and go over the NAEP results -- I'm

18 just checking to see if she's still behind me.

19 So we have the PSAT and also Advanced

20 Placement Exams that are also taking place. The PSAT

21 the District has supported the implementation of in

22 10th grade for a number of years now, and it's designed

23 to be able to increase actual performance on --

24 involving the college-going process.

25 And so it so happens that many students that



93

1 take the PSAT have correlated with doing --

2 MS. RATLIFF: I don't think we have this

3 slide.

4 Does anybody have this slide?

5 MR. LOERA: Oh, you know what?

6 I think we added this one this morning, so I

7 apologize for not having that. We'll send you the

8 final on that.


10 MR. LOERA: So the PSAT is 10th grade.

11 What's remarkable about -- remarkable about

12 the results there is that students that do take the

13 PSAT, which a good percentage of our students --

14 actually, the data seems to show that students do much

15 better on the actual SAT when they take it afterwards.

16 We have the Advanced Placement Test that's

17 taking place May 5th through the 16th, and this starts

18 to go into the budget conversation. We'll have the

19 slide there at the end that I'll discuss more.

20 But students that are on free or reduced lunch

21 or participate in the National School Lunch Program pay

22 a $5 fee from the student side. The District pays $5

23 from the district side. The PD pays its own dollars

24 for that, and the bottom line is the school district as

25 whole in 2013 spent $194,000. It's not up there, but



94

1 it's on mine. It's $194,000 in 2013 for AP

2 participation.

3 MS. RATLIFF: Is that including the PSAT, or

4 that's just $194,000 for the --

5 MR. LOERA: That's only the AP. Only AP.

6 MS. RATLIFF: How much was the PSAT?

7 MR. LOERA: The PSAT cost -- I don't know if I

8 have that specifically for you today.

9 MS. RATLIFF: You could bring it back next

10 time if you'd like.

11 MR. LOERA: Okay.

12 MS. RATLIFF: So I'm just curious because it

13 says we cover it for all our district 10th graders, so

14 I'm just curious how much it costs.

15 MR. LOERA: Yes. I have a number in my head,

16 but I don't want to say without being a hundred percent

17 sure.

18 Okay. So the Dr. --

19 MS. RATLIFF: I'm sorry.

20 MR. LOERA: Oh, sorry.

21 MR. KAYSER: Looking at the -- these

22 timelines, obviously some of the testing starts earlier

23 than other tests.

24 Do those tests all go to the end of the

25 curriculum?



95

1 Are they testing as the students finish the

2 course, or do they go as far as if the beginning -- in

3 other words, if the teacher at the school wanted to

4 give the test at the beginning of the time span there

5 instead of the middle or the end, would they be

6 penalizing the students because they haven't gotten to

7 the end of the course yet?

8 MR. LOERA: Are you speaking about a specific

9 test?

10 Like are you --

11 MR. KAYSER: All the tests we've talked about

12 today.

13 MR. LOERA: So --

14 MR. KAYSER: There's a span of time in which

15 the test is given.

16 Is it -- does the -- does the curriculum stop

17 at that point in terms of what's being tested, or does

18 the curriculum continue to the end, and the students

19 are asked to take a test for something that the class

20 hasn't gotten to yet?

21 MR. LOERA: So curriculum and teaching should

22 continue beyond testing, so testing is only one marker,

23 so instruction doesn't stop when testing finishes.

24 MR. KAYSER: Well, I understand that, but what

25 I'm asking is when the test is written, does it only



96

1 cover the material up to that point for the testing

2 window, or does the test contain material that hasn't

3 been taught yet?

4 MS. LIM: So under the old -- the CSTs, the

5 California Standards Test, you know, the test we used

6 to have, it was -- they usually started when 80 percent

7 of the school year was completed, so they weren't

8 written as, like, end of the school year. It was

9 assuming that you had covered 80 percent of the

10 instructional calendar, and then you start testing.

11 It will be different with the Smarter Balanced

12 ones. We don't really know yet because we're doing the

13 field test this year, so I assume that when we're fully

14 operational next year, we'll have those same kind of

15 guidelines.

16 MR. KAYSER: Well, I hope they keep the

17 80 percent rule.

18 MS. LIM: Pardon me?

19 MR. KAYSER: I said I hope they keep the

20 80 percent rule.

21 MS. LIM: Yeah.

22 MR. MULLER: Now, I had some questions

23 actually about the PSAT slide that I'd like followed up

24 on, and we are running short of time, and I would be

25 happy to hear about it next time.



97

1 So it says for both of them or for the first

2 one, "Designs to increase student access involvement in

3 the college-going process," which I certainly agree

4 with. I think that ultimately increasing opportunities

5 for all our youth is really what we're all about;

6 however, I'd like to see some numbers. I'd like to see

7 that since this has gone on, what is the result, and

8 what's the rate of matriculation. All of those data

9 points I'd like to see.

10 Also, I'm not entirely sure that it would be

11 fair to call it NMSQT because that's only for students

12 who are taking the PSAT in 11th grade. They're the

13 only ones who qualify National Merit Scholarship. When

14 they take it this time, they're not qualified for that.

15 And then also, I'd also like the District

16 documentation that said -- that identifies how the

17 PSAT results are used to support students'

18 identification for Advanced Placement. I don't know

19 that I'm familiar with that and having taught AP

20 before, I would love to be able to find that out.

21 And also the advanced placement stuff too, I'd

22 like to see the correlation for the college and career

23 readiness. I -- I want to see that the claims that are

24 laid out for these programs are borne out by the data,

25 please.



98

1 MS. RATLIFF: So -- so I hear you. I think

2 that you have some legitimate questions. I am

3 interested though in not making them do more

4 PowerPoints, so perhaps if you could, just send us like

5 any memos, or you can just bring back a memo that talks

6 about, you know, how they identify and so forth.

7 Does that make sense?

8 Because I do think those are legitimate. We

9 should get that information, but I'm not interested in

10 making somebody draft this into a PowerPoint if a memo

11 or something would be just as good.

12 MR. LOERA: Great.

13 So Dr. Lim's going to come up and speak

14 regarding our NAEP results.

15 MS. LIM: Okay. We're going to switch gears

16 away from Common Core, away from the California

17 Standards Test. I was going to go over with you the

18 latest results of the NAEP results, which stands for

19 the National Assessment Educational Progress. It's an

20 assessment that's been given since 19- -- I think 1969

21 across the nation. It's a way of assessing what

22 students across the nation know and can do in core

23 subjects. So every state in the nation gives this test

24 to a sample of grade 4 and grade 8 students.

25 And it was designed really to look at what do



99

1 our students know across the nation, across states,

2 across different districts. They're for populations of

3 students, not individual students. They use a sampling

4 approach. So not every student is tested. Not every

5 students gets the entire test. It's a matrix test, so

6 different students get different parts of the test.

7 It reports on students' performance

8 nationally, and it reports on changes over time

9 because, in essence, it's been the same test since

10 2003, so it allows us to compare between states and

11 across the nation.

12 So since 2003, certain Urban districts --

13 that's why you see this term TUDA. They're Trial Urban

14 Districts -- have volunteered to give this assessment

15 and to get individual district results. So LAUSD has

16 participated in this since 2003. We have results going

17 back ten years.

18 So NAEP is administered every other year.

19 They do it over a six-week period. In the 2013 school

20 year -- the '12/'13 school year, it was administered

21 January 28 to March 8th, and the results are reported

22 in several different kinds of formats.

23 One is an average scale score which ranges

24 from zero to 500 on a math and reading assessments.

25 The scores can't be compared across content areas.



100

1 It's just specific to that -- to that subject.

2 I'll just -- I have my notes here.

3 The scores are all also reported by

4 achievement levels on a categorical scale so that we

5 have below basic, basic, proficient, advanced. Kind of

6 like what we have on the California Standards Test, but

7 not a hundred percent.

8 Okay. Okay. We can go to the next slide.

9 So there are a number of different ways to

10 represent the results. I thought it'd just be best to

11 just show you everything we've got. So this -- this

12 chart shows you grade 4 reading results for LAUSD for

13 every -- overall and for every subgroup, and we show

14 you the results going back to 2003.

15 So as you recall, this test is given every

16 other year, so it's not every year since 2003.

17 MS. RATLIFF: I thought in general glancing at

18 it -- I mean there were some issues, but my biggest

19 concern was actually students with disabilities.

20 Can you talk a little bit about that?

21 MS. LIM: Yes.

22 MS. RATLIFF: I mean if you look at it, it

23 appears that our scores are going down -- right?

24 So our scores in 2013 are worse than ten years

25 ago, so I was just wondering if you have any sense



101

1 of -- if anybody's done analysis about like what's

2 going on there maybe?

3 MS. LIM: No. I know that there have been --

4 there've been different rules that have been applied

5 over the years as to who is included or excluded, but,

6 no. This has not been a topic of further

7 investigation. So basically --

8 MS. RATLIFF: I'm sorry. We have a couple

9 questions real quick. Sorry, Dr. Lim.

10 We're going to start with Ms. Guthrie.

11 MS. GUTHRIE: I have the same question, and I

12 was wondering if it corresponded to the increase in

13 mainstreaming and the way that our resource specialists

14 are used at school sites. And my other concern is with

15 English Language Learners who also seem to be on the

16 decline and whether that has to do with the program

17 that we are implementing. The course of study that we

18 are now currently using.

19 MS. LIM: Again, those are good hypotheses.

20 We have not done a further analysis of that.

21 MR. MULLER: I have the same question.


23 MR. FOLSOM: Did I -- these may be different

24 from you. I think you just said that these could

25 reflect different populations over time.



102

1 MS. LIM: Right. So I know that with students

2 with disabilities, that the rules around

3 inclusion/exclusion have changed over the years so

4 that could be a part of it.

5 MR. FOLSOM: So somebody really needs to

6 crunch those numbers because I mean we need to be

7 focused on the English Language Learner. I mean that's

8 where we are focused, on English Language Learners and

9 students with disability, you know, and if the best we

10 can do is flat and slightly declining, we're not doing

11 the best.

12 MS. LIM: Right. Another -- you know, another

13 hypothesis could be, in 2003, our reclassification

14 rates were very low. Our reclassification rates have

15 gotten higher, so as students reach proficiency or if

16 basic or above, they -- they are reclassified out of

17 the English Learner category, so we could be looking

18 at -- you know, these are different populations of

19 students over time. Different 4th grade cohorts.

20 MR. FOLSOM: Yeah. I'd really like to see

21 these questions answered with a high level of

22 confidence, not with a hypothesis. I mean I don't

23 think that's asking too much.

24 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Well -- well, though, in

25 fairness -- in fairness, they just came today, so it's



103

1 not fair to ask them today to like answer with any sort

2 of -- but we can have them come back. We can have them

3 come back.

4 MS. LIM: Thank you.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So -- all right. So why don't

6 we at some point -- and I'm looking at -- we're getting

7 really packed in the schedule, so I'll work with

8 Gerardo to come with up a date in the future where

9 maybe we can like kind of delve into these issues and

10 some --

11 MS. LIM: Okay.

12 MS. RATLIFF: -- detail.

13 MS. LIM: Okay. The next slide shows you the

14 same information for 8th graders. You see the same

15 trends with students with disabilities, English

16 Learners, and we show you the overall result over time.

17 So one of the things that -- because we

18 participate as an Urban district with NAEP, we can

19 compare our scores with other Urban districts across

20 the country, and this chart show you the reading scores

21 for LAUSD compared to the other Urban District that

22 also tested students in 2003.

23 So in 4th grade reading, LAUSD gained by

24 11 scale score points compared to all the other Urban

25 districts, and we were third highest compared to



104

1 Atlanta and the District of Columbia.

2 If we look at the 8th grade reading scores,

3 LAUSD and Atlanta have the highest gain since 2003 with

4 15 scale score points.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So I think in the future when we

6 do come back to this, it might be interesting to see --

7 I don't know if you -- you would have access. I'm

8 guessing you would, but I don't know.

9 Would you have access to their information,

10 like Atlanta, District of Columbia's and so forth in

11 terms of seeing these kinds of things?

12 Because I think that would be useful to see if

13 students with disabilities, if this an issue across the

14 nation --

15 MS. LIM: Sure. Yeah. I think we do.

16 MS. RATLIFF: -- I think that would be

17 interesting thing to talk about.

18 MS. LIM: I think we do have access to the

19 data sets for the other districts. Yeah.

20 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Hi. I have a brief

21 question.

22 How much of an overlap is there between

23 categories, say, for English Language Learners and all

24 of the, Asian, Hispanic, African-American and White

25 categories?



105

1 Are some of those also English Language

2 Learners?

3 MS. LIM: Oh, yes. There -- yes. There

4 are -- there are overlaps. So, you know, in the

5 district, 75 percent of our students are Latino, and

6 30 percent are English Learners, so there's probably

7 some overlap there. Yeah.

8 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Oh --

9 MR. ZIMMER: In general, I thought we were

10 really proud of our NAEP scores.

11 MS. LIM: Yes.

12 MR. ZIMMER: That they are --

13 MS. LIM: Well, I am. Yes.

14 MR. ZIMMER: That there are indicators,

15 particularly in reading and math, that we have done

16 much better.

17 MS. LIM: Yes. And that's what these charts

18 show you compared to other Urban districts.

19 MR. ZIMMER: No one is satisfied, as we always

20 say, but the idea that we are constantly and

21 irreparably failing as a public school district would

22 be contradicted by these numbers, would they not?

23 MS. LIM: Sure.

24 MR. ZIMMER: That's something to be proud of.

25 MS. LIM: Yes.



106

1 MR. ZIMMER: I agree.

2 MR. MULLER: I would also like to comment that

3 these -- that these gains were made in absence largely

4 of the teaching and learning framework, and a lot of

5 the stuff that is coming up right now -- and I want to

6 make sure that it's the decade's worth of work from all

7 of our educators in the district that has led to these

8 gains and not anything that has happened in the last

9 365 days.

10 MS. LIM: Great.

11 So here are the results for math, grade 4

12 math. You see kind of the same trend we have

13 traditionally, underperforming subgroups.

14 Overall, though, districtwide, we do see a

15 gain in grade 4 math in 2013 and for most of our

16 subgroups.

17 MS. RATLIFF: I'm sorry. I'm just curious.

18 Did we do any sort of breaking out in terms of

19 subgroups that are like free and reduced lunch

20 recipients or anything like that?

21 MS. LIM: That is -- the NSLP is the National

22 School Lunch Program.

23 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, fantastic. Thank you.

24 MS. LIM: Yeah. I guess it's a little

25 cryptic. I couldn't spell out reduced lunch, yeah.



107

1 Okay. So this chart shows you grade 8

2 results, and, again, you can see overall we are on an

3 upward trajectory, and we do still see lower

4 performance among students with disabilities and

5 English learners, but most of our other subgroups show

6 increases.

7 And for math, I thought I would show you the

8 one-year change. So in reading I showed you the change

9 over the last ten years. In math, this graph shows you

10 all the districts that are part of the urban district

11 program. You see that we have many more urban

12 districts that are participating than we did in 2003,

13 and if we look at the gains from the previous years --

14 so remember these are two-year cycles -- Los Angeles

15 was No. 3 in terms of grade 4 math after

16 Washington, D.C. and Chicago, and in grade 8 math,

17 Los Angeles led all the urban districts with, I think

18 that's an 8 -- I can't see that number that clearly --

19 compared to all the other urban districts. So that is

20 grade 8 math.

21 And that's -- any other questions around NAEP.

22 MR. ZIMMER: As Dr. Muller highlighted that

23 the 2003 to 2013 scores have been made, you know, with

24 diligence and high quality work by our -- our staff

25 employees and teachers over time, I think it's



108

1 important to highlight that these changes in grade 8

2 math in 2011 to 2013 were made in the midst of one of

3 the greatest budget crisis ever to hit a school

4 district and that the grade 8 math scores on NAEP,

5 which is not the only measurement, are the highest in

6 the nation. It's impressive.

7 MS. LIM: Okay.

8 MS. RATLIFF: All right. Thank you so much.

9 So let's go to budget.

10 MR. LOERA: Okay. So for the district --

11 MS. RATLIFF: I don't have that one either.

12 MR. LOERA: Well, we sent this yesterday.

13 Remember you emailed me last night. I put it in today.

14 MS. RATLIFF: I'm glad you did though.

15 Thank you.

16 MR. LOERA: Okay. Great. I wasn't sure what

17 level of detail you wanted.

18 So, anyway, here it is. We got our Periodic

19 Assessments historically for English Language Arts,

20 Math, Science and Social Science. This is, you can

21 see, for 2012/13 was about a $4 million contract year

22 per year. And the funding source for it was Title 1.

23 It was part of our PILEA plan for corrective action

24 that required us to use these type of assessments as a

25 district, and the DIBELS next assessment, which I



109

1 referred to earlier, is about a $2.3 million yearly

2 cost, and we are doing that this year for 2013/14

3 knowing we have the specific grades that are included

4 in there. For Math 6, the assessment cost for Math 6

5 test is the $200,000 figure, as well as the 8th grade

6 Algebra. So the funding source for that is Coordinated

7 Early Intervention Services, the CEIS grant. And then

8 for reclassification, because we are using our PAs for

9 about 40,000 kids, the cost for this year is $60,000 to

10 get that completed.

11 The AP exams, which I discussed a little bit

12 earlier, the price tag for that is $194,735 from last

13 year's figures. So those are the -- and the funding

14 source for that is also General Fund. It's not on

15 this -- oh, there it is. It's on that slide, not on

16 mine.

17 And so I don't have the figures for last year

18 on the AP exams included on here. We tried to put this

19 together in as quick as we could for time today since

20 our exchange in email last night, but -- so you know,

21 I'd like to take questions on this slide.

22 MS. RATLIFF: Sure. So -- so just to clarify

23 then, out of the General Funds, the only assessment

24 costs coming out of the General Funds are the AP exams

25 and the reclassification assessments, and this is just



110

1 for 2012/2013 and 2013/2014; right?

2 MR. LOERA: So we --

3 MS. RATLIFF: So where did reclassification

4 assessments come out of last year?

5 MR. LOERA: So reclassification assessments

6 from 2012/13 were the CST assessments. So the District

7 might have to pay for those. So in the absence of that

8 this year, we had to put something in place in order to

9 still meet the ED Code requirement.

10 MS. RATLIFF: So the CELDT that was used last

11 year, where did that come from?

12 MR. LOERA: The CELDT is -- is -- we still

13 continue to do the CELDT. The CELDT is now also not --

14 we don't pay for it as a school district. That's paid

15 for externally.

16 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, wonderful.

17 MR. LOERA: Yes.

18 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So then it looks like the

19 only thing coming out of the General Funds, AP exams,

20 and the reclassification assessments?


22 MS. RATLIFF: So tell me more about when the

23 funding source is Title 1, it looks like we've got the

24 $2 million and the $4 million, so roughly like

25 $6 million of -- in terms of Title 1 funding.



111

1 Do you have any sense off the top of your

2 head, because I have no idea, what -- how much type --

3 how much comes in Title 1-wise to the District.

4 MR. LOERA: Yeah. I don't have that of the

5 top of my head.


7 You don't know, Dr. Lim, do you by any chance?

8 MS. LIM: Let me clarify that -- so the

9 $4 million and probably the DIBELS, that was a

10 three-year contract, so that was actually issued the

11 year before, '11/'12. The source of the Title 1 funds

12 for the periodic assessments came out of the set-aside

13 for professional development that the District was

14 mandated to do because we were a Program Improvement

15 District, and it was part of our Program Improvement

16 Plan, but since we are now part of the Core Waiver, we

17 are no longer considered a Program Improvement

18 District, so that source of funding is no -- not

19 available to us to use.

20 MS. RATLIFF: So that almost says to me that

21 then the $4 million -- well, but we're not going to do

22 them in 20- -- in 2013/2014, we're essentially saying

23 we have no Periodic Assessment costs.

24 MS. LIM: Correct, because we did not -- we

25 did not renew that contract.



112

1 MS. RATLIFF: Right. So -- so then the cost

2 that schools have in terms of, like, reproducing and so

3 on, is that considered negligible essentially?

4 MS. LIM: For this year, the cost of

5 reproducing the assessments this year came out of the

6 Common Core money that was allocated to school sites.

7 They were allowed to use that -- those -- that funding

8 for that, for the Repro costs.

9 MS. RATLIFF: And do we have any idea what

10 that -- what that might be or what it would cost?

11 I don't know because -- the reason I'm asking

12 is because when I was visiting a school sites, they

13 were like "Ah, if you could do something about the cost

14 of the copies because we have to do them in color

15 because they're science," all right?

16 So this was why they were complaining, I

17 think, was really because of the cost of the color

18 copies and so that was -- that's -- that's why I'm

19 interested in the actual cost of reproduction --

20 MS. LIM: We did put together a slide of the

21 Repro Costs. It wasn't very detailed, and we didn't

22 know if you wanted to see --

23 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, do you still have it?

24 That'd be great.

25 MR. LOERA: Yes. Here it is.



113

1 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, fantastic. So it's going to

2 take me a few seconds to read it.

3 MS. LIM: And we'll email this to you too,

4 so --

5 MR. LOERA: Yes.

6 MS. RATLIFF: Oh good.

7 Okay. So then it looks like K through 5,

8 Total Per Student, $1 to $2.40, and this is for the

9 whole -- all of them?

10 Have you summed it up?

11 Is that it?

12 MR. LOERA: So for the -- for the cost to

13 print -- for the cost of printing the Periodic

14 Assessments, correct.

15 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. And then 6 through 8,

16 $1.80 to $3.20. High school, $2.20 to $2.40.

17 So -- oh, but there's no -- there's the

18 Science. High school 50 to 60 cents; right?


20 MS. RATLIFF: Ah, but I guess they would say

21 something -- why are you complaining high school?

22 I guess they would complain because it's per

23 student; right?

24 So it's 50 to 60 cents per student.

25 And History, my goodness. History is very



114

1 expensive. Look at that. $1.40 -- $1.20 to $1.40 per

2 student, plus we add it to the English Language and

3 Math, and now we're looking at $2.40 plus $1.40, so

4 we're looking at $3.80 per student; right?

5 And is all of this -- was all of this -- did

6 we give them enough Common Core money to cover that?

7 MR. LOERA: We gave an allocation to schools

8 at $70 per student, so this did apply towards some of

9 that, but obviously not all.

10 MS. RATLIFF: Right. But $70 per student

11 definitely covers it, but then that does mean that they

12 aren't going to be able to use that money for, say,

13 some of the other things that was mentioned in terms of

14 the Common Core.



17 Any questions about this before I move on?


19 MS. RATLIFF: Yes?

20 MR. ROSS: A question about cost.

21 My interpretation in the chart I saw earlier

22 was that it focused primarily on funding provided by

23 the District.

24 MS. RATLIFF: Can you go back to that

25 (unintelligible).



115

1 MR. ROSS: You don't have to. I'm -- it's --

2 MS. RATLIFF: (Unintelligible.)

3 MR. ROSS: Okay. And then you mentioned in

4 passing that there are other costs that are incurred by

5 the State, I guess, for the, you know, the state level

6 tests and that would be a part of the cost as well.

7 It's not the funding incurred by the District, but I

8 guess the cost of testing would include all of that,

9 you know, in terms of the actual dollar cost. It would

10 also include the time spent on the administration of

11 the test, and, you know, you can do it in time, but,

12 for example, if a teacher spends -- how much time?

13 I think -- because I -- we tried to chat a

14 little bit about this beforehand, but for this,

15 hypothetically, if a teacher spends 10 hours or 20

16 hours doing testing, then the cost of testing would be

17 that 10 hours times the cost of the teacher's salary or

18 benefits or something like that, so the cost is

19 probably more complex. That is, that we incurring a

20 much higher cost of testing than reflected in the

21 funding.

22 And so one way to get at that would be to

23 tally, you know, the amount of time on the average,

24 and Mr. Zimmer asked one question earlier about how

25 much -- how many days do we spend throughout the year



116

1 on testing, and a couple other questions related to

2 that probably would have to clarify is how much time

3 does the school spend on the average on testing, how

4 much time does the teacher spend on the average

5 annually on testing, and how much time do the students

6 at different levels, and I think that would help to

7 clarify in a better the cost because cost are more

8 complex, I think, than the -- just the funding.

9 MS. LIM: Right. And I think the other

10 complication that we're -- you know, we're

11 transitioning from an old testing system to a new one,

12 so under the old testing system under California

13 Standards Test, you could test the entire school at one

14 time because it's paper/pencil. You designate a

15 certain day as testing. Every classroom is doing that

16 testing.

17 Now, with the shift to Common Core, we don't

18 have the bandwidth to test every single student

19 simultaneously at one time, so now classrooms will have

20 to be, you know, revolve through classroom that have

21 devices that could take it on-line.

22 So I would think if we're talking about the

23 cost to a school, it's going to increase because you're

24 going to need to bring, you know, the -- these carts

25 are going to have 35 devices on there, so you could at



117

1 minimum bring, you know, 34 students through at a time

2 to test. So it's harder -- it's more cost efficient to

3 just have, you know, everyone testing at the same time,

4 but now we'll have to bring kids through in different

5 groups.

6 MR. ROSS: Follow-up.

7 Will you actually be providing an estimate of

8 how much time it will be taking the schools --

9 MS. LIM: So --

10 MR. ROSS: But now, I guess -- you're saying

11 though, I guess, you'll be looking at this closely --

12 MS. LIM: Well, yes. We have --

13 MR. ROSS: -- and probably making it more

14 efficient over time.

15 MS. LIM: That's how we determine how many

16 devices will be needed to complete testing.

17 MR. ROSS: Right.

18 MS. RATLIFF: So you -- you know, you have

19 some fixed -- fixed variables. You have the amount of

20 time the testing window the you have. We assume that

21 schools would test two hours a day in the morning.

22 Most schools don't test in the afternoon, and then we

23 multiply it by the -- the number of kids that need to

24 get tested --

25 MR. ROSS: Right.



118

1 MS. LIM: So it gives you an idea.

2 MR. ROSS: And so you'd have -- those

3 estimates will be provided in that memo that was --

4 there was a reference to a cost memo or something in

5 follow-up in terms of time, funding cost and all that.

6 MS. LIM: Oh, sure. I mean, yeah.

7 I mean if we're talking about, you know, every

8 single cost under the sun, sure. We could. I mean,

9 yeah.

10 MR. ROSS: Well, I'm not sure, but -- but I

11 think in terms of cost, to be honest, just looking at

12 funding is misleading. You know, if I look at that and

13 I see $4 million for that, you know, it's like I'm

14 adding up figures in my head, and I get maybe

15 $10 million --

16 MS. LIM: Sure.

17 MR. ROSS: -- and it -- it doesn't really

18 represent the true cost which probably may be closer

19 to, you know, to $100 million.

20 MS. LIM: Right. So the question that we were

21 asked was about -- I interpreted as funding, so --

22 MR. ROSS: Oh, okay?

23 MS. LIM: -- so I provided funding costs, but,

24 you know, we could -- we could come up with an estimate

25 of the full cost in terms of staff time, school time,



119

1 you know, what it costs to --

2 MR. ROSS: I don't know.

3 What's your sense of that?

4 Was that your intent as it relates to cost

5 or --

6 MS. RATLIFF: Sure. Well, when we first --

7 when we first sat together talking about what we were

8 going to do for the next new few months -- right? -- I

9 was interested in the cost. And when I said cost at

10 that point, I was interested in the financial costs;

11 right?

12 I think these are legitimate questions though

13 about of the cost in terms of time as well, and I do

14 think it would be good to come back in April when --

15 because we've got Assessment Update on there and

16 discuss it in more detail.

17 I mean one thing I would like to say is, you

18 know, I'm trying to look at like when are -- so we've

19 got this Periodic Assessments coming up in secondary.

20 They've got ELA. They've got Science. They've got

21 History/Social Science, and they've got Math twice a

22 year. I'm guessing they already did the first one a

23 long time ago. The next one is coming up or has

24 happened. I didn't -- I didn't quite -- I couldn't

25 quite interpret on the high school assessment timeline



120

1 where the Periodic Assessments were.

2 Were they on here?

3 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.)


5 So in that case, my only thought was, if we

6 don't need them, why are we asking them to do them?

7 I understand absolutely the idea that we want

8 to have this culture that we've created, you know,

9 where people get together and they look at student

10 work. I absolutely completely understand that. I

11 support that, but I'm wondering, since we are moving in

12 another direction and as we're getting really late in

13 the year, why not spend our time focusing on the

14 assessments that are really going to move our students

15 forward.

16 So -- so that's why I'm a little bit like I --

17 I'm glad we're having this discussion, I mean, but I

18 think I'm a little concerned that we're having it now.

19 By the time we come back in April and we discuss the

20 costs, it's possible that these schools have already

21 had to try to figure out, "When are we going to do this

22 assessment? How are we going to do it," and I -- I'm

23 just concerned about the use of time, and I just think

24 that this late in the game, if we know that we are

25 moving in another direction and if we've already told



121

1 the schools we're not gathering this information

2 centrally, then it's really for there benefit.

3 So if it's really for there benefit, then why

4 not let them at this late time in the year come up with

5 a plan for using their time most efficiently and their

6 money. I mean the reality is if we go back to the

7 slide where it's like a couple dollars per students,

8 you know, in the long run -- okay? -- in the long run,

9 it seems like just a couple dollars per student, but

10 when you're a high school and you have a thousand

11 students, well -- or 1,200 or 2,400 -- right? -- or

12 2,700 students, then it starts to really add up, and it

13 is taking it out of the Common Core money, so I'm glad

14 they have that Common Core money, but I know when I

15 voted in terms of the $70 going to the school site per

16 student, I wasn't thinking they were going to have to

17 spend a lot of money copying Periodic Assessments.

18 That wasn't how I perceived it.

19 Did you perceive it that way?

20 MR. ZIMMER: I just know it's a lot of money.

21 MS. RATLIFF: Right.

22 When we were talking about the $70 per

23 student, did you think about it in terms of them using

24 it for the Periodic Assessments?

25 MR. KAYSER: Not specifically. Not



122

1 specifically, but I keep seeing money -- I wondered

2 about bond money and computers, os I may be the wrong

3 person to ask.

4 MR. RAMIREZ: That was also part to -- it was

5 to pay the professional development for teachers, the

6 $70.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Right. Right.

8 And so that's my concern. That we're taking

9 it out of -- well, and it wasn't just professional

10 development for teachers. It was also development for

11 parents; right?

12 It was also really supposed to be focused on

13 how do we train our parents so that they can better

14 help our students learn the Common Core Standards and

15 using these devices then as we move forward.

16 So I'm really concerned. So I guess the

17 takeaway that I would ask is that -- is that -- is that

18 you all discuss amongst yourselves whether or not we

19 really need to mandate that they even do these Period

20 Assessments in some of the secondary or however. I

21 mean just think about it, and -- and then ultimately

22 when we come back in April, if you would just let us

23 know either what happened or -- and maybe you'll say,

24 "We think it was really instructionally, it was the

25 best thing to continue and do this," blah, blah, blah,



123

1 and that's fine too. And then we could also learn more

2 if it's relevant anymore what either costs. And if

3 it's not relevant anymore, then it's moot. In terms

4 of, like, if you all say, "We're not going to do it

5 anymore," then we don't need to go down that road,

6 but -- but if you do decide that we really should

7 continue doing these Periodic Assessments, then I think

8 we should look at some of the costs in terms of the

9 time and so forth and why it was considered a really

10 valuable thing for them to do with that time and money.

11 Any other comments on that?

12 Mr. Lopez?

13 MR. LOPEZ: Yes. I was just going to voice

14 similar concerns, and I -- whereas, I think that the

15 Benchmark Assessments or Periodic Assessments are great

16 tools, and I really support that, and I think our

17 school has found ways to use them, but another item

18 that maybe hasn't been mentioned is the scoring part.

19 So this year we're -- our teachers are

20 responsible for scoring, so that's another cost yet and

21 that's a pretty big cost in addition to the ones that

22 you have mentioned also.

23 MS. RATLIFF: So I do want to be clear, I'm

24 not saying people should assess. Okay?

25 I'm just saying that if the school has



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1 something that they would rather use at this -- at this

2 time -- at this juncture and it's Common Core aligned,

3 then maybe that's the message to get out to them. And

4 as you said, possibly a lot of them will be, like,

5 "It's too hard for us to create it. We'd rather just

6 use these."

7 Dr. Muller, and then we're going to move on.

8 MR. MULLER: I was just going to say, be

9 careful about reducing the number of days of

10 assessment. We might be able to sneak a little

11 instruction in there.


13 So the last thing I have here is the Smarter

14 Balanced test items.

15 Did you want to go over any these, or was this

16 more for our information?

17 MR. LOERA: Those are for your information

18 just to give you some additional examples of the

19 assessment items that are being created by Smarter

20 Balanced. These are right off the -- the practice

21 tests, and I would encourage, if you haven't made or

22 taken any time, to go through it yourselves and try one

23 of these out. I would encourage you to do it

24 particularly on-line. You know, pick any assessment

25 items that they have. If you go to the



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1 "SmarterBalanced.com" Website, you can find the link to

2 get to a practice assessment. Smarter Balanced is

3 updating their practice tests in April, and they are

4 going to be releasing some new items there.

5 It's a really -- if you haven't done it, it's

6 an eye-opening experience for you to go through and

7 take a look at what's actually required for our

8 students and what are the implementations for

9 instruction.

10 I think ultimately is we've encouraged that

11 practice throughout the district. It ultimately is a

12 lever of people realizing what is truly required to

13 have students prepared for this new era of new

14 standards.

15 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you. Now, as we -- as we

16 move into closing, we are going to be working on -- or

17 taking a look at the changes in the math standards next

18 month, and we had talked a little bit about some of the

19 things to bring back and so forth.

20 The other thing I think that you'd mentioned

21 that I was curious if there's any connection, it would

22 be useful I think to mention it next month is the

23 Teacher Growth and Development Framework connection to

24 the -- to the Common Core State Standards.

25 If there's anything you want to say or that



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1 would be relevant in terms of the Teacher Growth and

2 Development Framework in terms of the math standards, I

3 think that would be useful for us to hear. And then

4 anything related to professional development which

5 would -- may or may not be related to the Teacher

6 Growth and Development Framework as it relates to the

7 math standards I think would be really useful.

8 And if there's anything else right now that

9 you know, that you have this burning, like, desire to

10 know about next month in terms of math, you really

11 should say so now if you can, otherwise, you could

12 email us, but it would be useful.

13 Anything?

14 MR. MULLER: Yeah.

15 Actually, I'd like to know what the plan is

16 for the implementation of the math framework from the

17 State of California.

18 MS. RATLIFF: Let's bring her up.

19 MR. CRAIN: She's right behind you.

20 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, great.

21 Okay. Ms. Jeffrey?

22 Hi.

23 MS. JEFFREY: Hi. Oh, hello. I was sitting

24 in the audience because I don't know our exact process,

25 but I wanted just to comment about the funding issue.



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1 One thing to consider in addition to the

2 copying cost is the personnel. Somebody has to do the

3 copying and the cartridges and the paper. It's --

4 it's -- in the era of budget cuts where we're -- we've

5 reduced a lot, it's -- it's a big impact on the school

6 sites.

7 So that's the only reason I got from the

8 audience here because I just wanted that to be a

9 consideration.

10 MS. RATLIFF: Right. Right.

11 Well, let me be very clear. You just walk on

12 up when you're on a committee, and you just come on

13 over and, like, find your spot. Yeah. But just for

14 FYI.

15 MS. JEFFREY: Okay. Thank you.

16 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So thank you.

17 In that case, we're going to go ahead and --

18 Ms. Guthrie?

19 MS. GUTHRIE: I just want to make one mention

20 about preparation for Smarter Balanced and that's the

21 skills that students need to have in terms of the

22 keyboarding. And we know that the keyboarding is

23 different on the iPad than it is on the laptop. We

24 need to do -- it's not fair to students who can only,

25 you know, type five to ten words a minute to -- I mean



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1 I've been giving the test, and it took my kids really

2 literally one period to get through one question

3 because they had to type two paragraphs. It's not fair

4 to give them the skills necessarily, not just

5 academically, but in terms of manual skills.

6 MR. LOERA: Right. That's why we're trying to

7 get these devices to the kids sooner.

8 MS. RATLIFF: And I do know that when I was at

9 Senator Lou's roundtable as Dr. Muller had mentioned,

10 there was discussion about how another school district

11 is using iPads with the keyboards that, like, connect

12 in and that gentleman was actually saying that they've

13 noticed that the keyboard, when you have the keyboard

14 connected, it kicks the students off. I don't even

15 know what that really means at this point, but he said

16 it kicks the students off, so they created this great

17 tutorial that we like got on our Website so the

18 teachers can, like, take a look at it.

19 So all I thought was, "Oh, I guess I should,

20 you know, make sure I mention that apparently if we put

21 the keyboards in, it's going to kick the kids off, and

22 we need to have a plan for that," so I just wanted to

23 mention that.

24 So did you have anything you wanted to add?

25 MR. LOERA: No.



129

1 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. All right.

2 Well, Thank you so much. We're going to go

3 ahead and move into public comment. We have three

4 public commenter, so if 1 through 3 would line up at

5 the side near the photographs, that would be great.

6 MR. FOLSOM: (Inaudible.)

7 MS. RATLIFF: Yes?

8 MR. FOLSOM: (Inaudible.)

9 MS. RATLIFF: Yes. I believe -- I believe

10 they're going to go ahead and send us the most updated

11 version.

12 Right, Gerardo? You're going to send us the

13 most updated version of the presentation; right?

14 MR. LOERA: (Inaudible.)

15 MS. RATLIFF: And then we'll send it out to

16 everybody, Scott.

17 MR. FOLSOM: Thank you.


19 Speaker No. 1, thank you so much for your

20 patience.

21 MS. NUTTING: Hello. My name is

22 Jennifer Nutting. I'm a teacher at Nightingale Middle

23 School. I'm also Education Director for Eagle Rock

24 Neighborhood Counsel and Gadfly in your inbox. It's

25 me, Jennifer Nutting. I write you all the time.



130

1 Very quickly, some of the things that I heard

2 I'd like to clarify. These Smarter Balanced Tests are

3 not across the nation. They're only adopted by 21 of

4 our states, so that's important to consider. We're --

5 you know, we're a petri dish for this company.

6 The other thing I'd like to mention is, you

7 know, one of the first tenets of teaching is backwards

8 planning, and the fact that these periodics, the

9 6th grade math test is not even developed yet, I mean

10 how are these 6th grade teachers supposed to teach

11 these things from the beginning of the year.

12 Also, I have used the practice test in my

13 classroom. I've experienced significant differences

14 depending on the device as far as what the students can

15 see; as far what they're typing; how much of the

16 question they can see without scrolling down and also

17 movement between screens, so that's going to affect a

18 student's scores, you know, what device they're taking

19 it on.

20 But the main thing I came here to talk about

21 was the math, which I'm really glad to see that you've

22 agendized for your next committee meeting.

23 At our school, we've been teaching 7th grade

24 Algebra and 8th grade Geometry for over a decade now,

25 and these are going to be phased out in favor of



131

1 Common Core Math 7 and 8, a one-size-fits-all approach.

2 7th grade Algebra and 8th grade Geometry has

3 been very successful at our school. 85 percent or

4 better of 7th grade Algebra students scored proficient

5 or advanced. 90 percent or better of 8th grade

6 Geometry students scored proficient or advanced, and

7 that's not a tiny percentage of students. We offer

8 three sections of each class every year, so we're

9 talking about hundreds of students that are earnings

10 20 credits -- high school credits before they even get

11 to high school.

12 Students like it. The parents like it. It

13 meets the A through G requirements, and for a district

14 that claims to be data driven, I don't think the

15 decision's databased.

16 The OCISS is phasing out these classes to

17 conform to Common Core, but if you look at Common Core,

18 7th grade prescribes Algebraic expressions, and 8th

19 grade prescribes Geometry among other skills.

20 I'm not against the Common Core, but I think

21 this standards are intended to beef up grade level, but

22 I don't think they're intended to hold back students

23 that working beyond grade level. So I don't want to

24 see these taken out of my middle school. It's very

25 popular. It's one of the draws that we have in terms



132

1 of competing with the Charters in our area and also the

2 Magnets in our area. Students -- parents send their

3 kids to our school just because they can get these

4 20 credits, and thanks for listening about that. I

5 know that you're -- you're going to talk about it the

6 next time, but I might not be able to come.

7 Thanks.


9 So, Mr. Loera, can you next -- next time

10 address some of those comments.



13 No. 2. Speaker No. 2. Okay. Seeing no

14 Speaker No. 2, Speaker No. 3, please.

15 MR. SIERRA: Greetings.

16 God is the Father and the son and the Holy

17 Spirit. The Lord our God is one God, Amen.

18 Hallelujah. Jesus is God, Amen. The Holy Trinity is

19 the one and only God. The creator of heaven and the

20 universe, Amen. Eternal Jesus was conceived by the

21 power of the Holy Spirit of God, and Christ was born of

22 the Virgin Mary. Jesus never sinned. Jesus Christ

23 preached the word of God. He forgave people's sins,

24 and he did many wonderful miracles.

25 The Lord Jesus cured the sick. He cured



133

1 diseases, and he healed crippled people instantly.

2 Jesus gave sight to the blind, and he raised dead

3 people to life. Innocent Jesus died for our sins on

4 the cross as our substitute. He was buried, and on the

5 third day, Jesus Christ resurrected, and he left the

6 tomb.

7 Jesus appeared to hundreds of his disciples

8 over the course of 40 days. Jesus Christ ascended into

9 heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of

10 God the Father Almighty in the kingdom of God, Amen.

11 Hallelujah.

12 Christian souls and spirits ascend into the

13 kingdom of heaven, Amen. Christians live forever with

14 God in the kingdom of God, Amen. Go to church. Read

15 the Holy Bible. Read the Holy Gospels. Read the

16 Book of John. Jesus Christ, the son of God said, "I

17 and my father are one. Anyone who has seen me has seen

18 the Father."

19 Reality is Jesus is God. Jesus Christ created

20 heaven and the universe. Praise the Lord. Read the

21 Book of II Peter, Chapter 3. Then read psalm

22 No. 90: "With the Lord one day is like 1,000 years,

23 and 1,000 years are like one day."

24 Everything is happening precisely like it is

25 prophesied in the Holy Bible because the Holy Bible is



134

1 the word of God, the creator of heaven and the

2 universe, and it is revealed to us by the power of his

3 Holy Spirit. Listen to what the Holy Spirit of the

4 Lord Jesus Christ is telling you. Listen to God. He

5 loves you. He cares about you. Jesus Christ loves you

6 and that's the truth. He loves the whole world.

7 Look at what's happening over there in Iraq.

8 Precisely like it is prophesied in the Holy Bible.

9 Babylon -- ancient Babylon, that ancient city had been

10 built once again just like it says in the Holy Bible,

11 and due to dams on the Euphrates, water mismanagement,

12 drought, and probably in the future more agriculture,

13 the Euphrates River is dwindling fast.

14 Over of the past 60 years, it has dwindled to

15 approximately 40 percent of what it used to be. That's

16 unprecedented in 6,000 years of history. Repent and

17 bleed reality Jesus is God, and then you will have life

18 everlasting with God in the kingdom of God, Amen.

19 Have a nice day.


21 Well, we're going to go ahead and close the

22 meeting. Thank you so much because I believe that was

23 Speaker No. 3 we had and four is up there, so -- oh.

24 Are you Speaker No. 2?

25 MS. ALEMAN: (Inaudible.)



135

1 MS. RATLIFF: You want to be 4? You gotta go

2 grab that card that says No. 4. You can come forward.

3 They're going to hand you the card.

4 Welcome. Just in time. Right over here to

5 the Center, and then there should be a clock there.

6 You can see the clock?

7 See it says a "3" on it?

8 MS. ALEMAN: Yes.

9 MS. RATLIFF: Great. So you'll have

10 three minutes; okay?

11 MS. ALEMAN: Okay.

12 Good afternoon. My name is Catherine. I'm a

13 current student, senior at ESP Roos- -- ESP, Academy of

14 Environmental and Social Policy at Roosevelt.

15 I'm here to state that as a student at ESP,

16 I've been aware that Superintendent Dr. John Deasy,

17 he's given the teachers a proposal of moving Lincoln to

18 Roosevelt, and as a student, as another student we have

19 here and parents, they weren't given -- they weren't

20 taken into consideration, and I wasn't as a student

21 either, so I would -- I wanted to speak to John Deasy

22 to have like more of an explanation of why that

23 decision or why that proposal, if he's seen that ESP as

24 a school and as a program has been very -- has been

25 very successful with many of its programs. The



136

1 graduation rates are very high. A lot of students

2 going off to college, and many of its programs, like I

3 said, very successful. And as a student, as a current

4 senior, I've been very successful my four years, and I

5 just -- I would like know to know why -- why that -- I

6 just most of all point out that I disagree with that

7 proposal because I know ESP wouldn't be ESP if they

8 were relocated into a larger campus.

9 ESP is an environment -- a small environment

10 where we all get personal -- personal attention,

11 support from teachers and student to student as a --

12 I'm a peer counselor at ESP, and I've helped many

13 students go on and apply to college, do their FAFSA, so

14 there's been many support both teacher-wise and

15 students-wise, so it -- it just upsets me that

16 students, that we make a school, we weren't taken into

17 consideration, and as parents, that they want the best

18 for their kids, they weren't given the option to

19 relocate this very successful school.

20 So I'm very upset of this proposal, and I

21 would like to see if -- I would like it to change. I

22 would like to stay there where my school is at,

23 East Los Angeles Skill Center because it's very -- it's

24 thrived, like, tremendously, and I want my future

25 colleagues, my future -- the students that are there,



137

1 juniors, seniors and the upcoming freshmen that we've

2 been, as a leadership student, doing many recruiting

3 and lots of students are there. They want to be there.

4 It's because they know that it's a very positive

5 environment, so I want to -- I would like to have a

6 chance to speak with Dr. John Deasy Superintendent and

7 see if -- change his mine most of all.

8 Thank you.

9 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you. Well, we don't

10 engage in back-and-forth discussions. I will let you

11 know, because this looks like it's your first time

12 here --

13 MS. ALEMAN: Yes, it is.

14 MS. RATLIFF: -- that Dr. Deasy is not on this

15 particular committee, and so he's not -- he's not here

16 to speak with you.

17 Mr. Bradshaw had a suggestion that maybe we

18 call -- I would call Operations, which is a division

19 within the District, and see if there's anyone who can

20 come speak with you.

21 Gerardo, would Operations be the right

22 division?


24 MS. RATLIFF: ISIC?

25 All right. So why don't we -- if you would



138

1 step to the side, and, Ms. Bradshaw, if you would call

2 up there, we'll see if someone can down, but I can't

3 really promise it because I didn't know you were

4 coming, and so we don't -- we didn't have a plan for

5 you.

6 Okay?

7 MS. ALEMAN: Just I haven't seen --

8 MS. RATLIFF: Your time is up, so you can't

9 take any more, so if you would just step to the side.

10 Sure.

11 All right. No. 5?

12 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: With that said, I'm in

13 support of the students, so I don't know if my time

14 will be --

15 MS. RATLIFF: You have your own three minutes.

16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: My own three minutes?

17 Well, in adding to that, I'm also a parent of

18 three successful students from ESP, which one of them

19 is already in Chico State, and my other one is a

20 senior, and I have another one that's a junior which is

21 also in leadership, so the school is working very well,

22 and I would just like for them to try one more time to

23 undo the program and the family structure that this

24 small school has.

25 Last year I was cut from being a parent



139

1 representative because of budget cuts, and I understand

2 that completely, but why cut a program that is already

3 functioning and it's doing very, very well.

4 So the students, the parents, myself, we need

5 to be heard. We need to be heard, and if there's an

6 issue with budget cuts, I know there's a way around it.

7 There has to be a way because if we can support war and

8 millions of dollars at war, why cannot a small school

9 of maybe 200, 300 students?

10 It's -- it's ridiculous. And if it's working,

11 and if it's making students and allowing them to go to

12 college, apply to UCs, why not? Why not?

13 So I just hope that these kids, the parents

14 have an opportunity to speak out how this program, how

15 this school is working very well at the location where

16 it's at. It's not only a school. It is a family.

17 More than half of these students, from the time that I

18 was working there as a parent and a representative,

19 them themselves and I got myself the name of Mama Soch.

20 So they're not only looking at me as a parent,

21 but as a mother figure to all of them, so this -- I

22 hope that they do get heard, and I hope that the

23 parents with me also get heard. It's only fair that

24 they -- our only wish is for education. They're not

25 out there causing problems, gang violence or anything.



140

1 They only want their education and that's pretty much

2 it.

3 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you very much.

4 Any -- okay. All right.

5 So my understanding is we do not have anybody

6 from Operations coming, and so what I'm going to do is

7 I'm going to send my staff member -- David, will you go

8 down and get their information, and then we'll see if

9 we can get somebody to contact them in the future.

10 All right. No. 6.

11 MS. FOX: Hello. My name is Ginger Fox, and

12 I'm the Chair of the UTLA Arts Education Committee, and

13 this was a great discussion. I thank you so much for

14 being here and asking these great questions of the

15 District around assessments.

16 There's a few questions that I have in

17 addition to the ones that were asked today. I would

18 really love to find out what it costs the District

19 to -- for the testing coordinators that are almost at

20 every one of our sites. Testing coordinators and

21 trainers that were discussed today, what that cost is,

22 and any other staff that is dedicated to test prep like

23 some of the out-of-the classroom intervention teachers

24 and the aides that was mentioned before about aides

25 needing to be used to make copies.



141

1 I would love to also see a difference in the

2 cost between paper-based assessments versus the new

3 digital assessments. And I know you've discussed this

4 a lot in the iPad committee, but I'd love to see what

5 the cost is to replace the outdated digital testing

6 devices and the comparisons between what is being spent

7 on materials for assessment versus materials needed for

8 instruction and what it might cost per school to

9 provide new testing devices once they become obsolete

10 in three years.

11 I was glad to hear the talk around time spent

12 on testing and the cost associated with time and test

13 prep. I think that's really very important, so I

14 thank you so much.

15 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you. All right.

16 Well, seeing that that was No. 6, and 7 is up

17 there which means that we do not have a Speaker No. 7,

18 we're going to go ahead and close the meeting.

19 Thank you so much for being with is today.

20 Thank you.

21 MR. CRAIN: It's 4:09 p.m.

22

23

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