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Assessment Office Seeks Thousands of Student Responses for New Writing Benchmarks
Summary
The assessment office asked districts to participate in a large field test of updated writing benchmark prompts and rubrics; staff said they need about 5,000 student responses per prompt and that responses will not be scored for participating LEAs this year.
Assessment staff asked districts to sign up for a field test of new writing benchmarks and rubrics for grades 3–8, stressing the program needs large participation to produce automated scoring and norms.
The staff member said the office needs roughly 5,000 student responses for each benchmark prompt and urged LEAs to volunteer students for the February–March field-test window. "We need 5,000 signal responses for each benchmark, field test responses in order for this to actually happen," the presenter said.
Scope and timing: the office is developing updated prompt language, new rubrics and a revised training-test environment. Staff said the writing benchmarks are optional for LEAs (benchmarks are not mandatory statewide), but that participation now is required to have the item pools and scoring available in future years. Participating LEAs will supply student essays; staff said collected responses will be used for range-finding and scoring development and that participating districts should not expect immediate scores this year.
Operational guidance and teacher time: staff suggested allocating about 90 minutes for on-demand writing (or two 45‑minute blocks) per prompt and noted that the field test may expand into April. Participants do not need to score submitted essays; assessment staff will use the student responses in summer range-finding to finalize rubrics and scoring. The office urged participation especially in grades 5 and 8, where summative writing remains required; it noted grades 3–7 benchmarks help instruction but are optional for state reporting.
How to sign up: assessment staff said they will post signup details and share the field-test link; they encouraged ADs to forward the request to principals and teachers and to treat the campaign as a priority so the office can complete range-finding this summer.
