Kansas students to spend less time taking tests


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LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Kansas students will spend less time taking tests under recently announced changes.

The Kansas State Department of Education is reducing the total required material to be assessed by 60 percent next school year, the Lawrence Journal-World (http://bit.ly/29S5zL4 ) reports. Education officials said the changes follow conversations with superintendents, principals, teachers and advocacy groups during the latest round of testing.

"They were concerned that students were spending a lot of time out of class taking tests, so we asked ourselves what would be a more efficient and useful way to go about administering the state assessments," KSDE Assistant Director of Assessments and Accountability Beth Fultz said in a news release.

The changes are possible because of revisions made to the federal education law. The revisions give more authority to states and local school boards, including how state assessments are administered and their results used.

Lawrence school board Vice President Shannon Kimball was among the district officials welcoming the change.

"Generally — from my experience in talking with teachers, parents and students — I think that you would find that they have all felt over the last many years that there's just too much testing going on," Kimball said.

State assessments are given in English, math and science to students in grades 3-8 and 10-11 over multiple class periods. The maximum amount of time students spent taking tests for the 2015-2016 school year is estimated to be 14 hours, according to KSDE. With the 60 percent reduction in material, the maximum time students spend taking tests is expected to fall to about six hours.

Kimball said she thinks that state and district staff believe that reducing state testing will benefit teachers and students.

"We can get quality information about where our students are — what they've mastered and what they haven't — with less testing," Kimball said. "I think that's a win-win for everybody. By reducing the amount of time our students are spending, I think that will actually improve test performance, because we have more instruction time to cover the materials and the skills that we need our students to know and to master."

More details about the testing changes will be made after school starts in August.

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Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com

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