District prepares for New Jersey—s adaptive field test; vendors and scoring still unsettled

Haddonfield—s district testing coordinator, Dr. Priolo, told the board on Jan. 8 that New Jersey is switching vendors for the statewide assessments and will require districts to administer an adaptive field test in the fall.

Dr. Priolo said a new vendor was selected and that the state will run a field test between Oct. 27 and Nov. 14 to help establish scoring and comparability for the first year under the new test. She described the tests as "adaptive assessments," meaning the questions adjust in difficulty based on student responses; the district—s experience with adaptive tools such as i-Ready and IXL means the format is not new to students. Dr. Priolo identified herself as the district testing coordinator and said she had attended the initial vendor training the day before the meeting.

She said the field test window will require two to three days of student testing, and that the district must plan for proctors, device rosters and teacher training. Dr. Priolo told trustees the state has not yet clarified whether the new results will map to the same level 1–5 scale used historically or how comparable spring scores will be to prior years; in past vendor changes the state has considered the first year largely baseline data. For science, Dr. Priolo said the district will continue to use the Pearson platform while math and English will move to the new vendor platform (the transcript referenced both "Canyon" and later "Cambium").

Next steps: the district testing coordinator will continue training, work with building administrators to schedule the field test between Oct. 27 and Nov. 14, and communicate procedures for proctors, devices and student preparation to staff and families.