ATI Expanding Common Core State Standards Comprehensive Benchmark Assessment Series

Starting in 2013-14, ATI will expand the offerings of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Comprehensive Benchmark Assessment Series. These options will include ATI’s traditional benchmark assessment item types along with assessments which contain new innovative item types.

There are many positives to both versions of the assessments.

• Both options will provide partnership districts with a view of where students are in the mastery of specific CCSS.  
• Both options will test instruction and provide valuable data for districts about where to best employ interventions.  
• Both options will employ the same high quality items and with the added rigor that CCSS require. 
• Both options will provide information about the growth of students as they move through the year.

ATI’s traditional benchmark assessments are automatically graded and provide immediate results for many of the common core standards once the test answer sheet is scanned or the test is administered online. Data analyses can be completed as soon as 80 percent of students complete the assessments. The test is graded without any possibility of bias from humans grading items differently from one another.

The assessments which contain new innovative item types provide students with the experience of taking open response items and other innovative items types using technology which may be required when the new state tests are released.  They also allow students to perform tasks at a higher Depth of Knowledge. Please Note: For these assessments, teachers will need to grade some of the items and input the scores before the test analyses can be completed.

District resources, district timelines for wanting data from the benchmarks, and local control will definitely affect which test option will work best for a district. There is one way districts can get the best of both options: Administer ATI’s traditional benchmark assessments for quick reliable data and also offer the open response items on a separate short test for teachers and schools who want the teachers and students to have the experience of taking and grading the higher Depth of Knowledge items.