As we have been dealing with the unprecedented outbreak and duration of the Covid-19 virus, two major questions have been asked by both teachers and parents.
1. Has there been any major loss in the quality of learning?
2. How is loss quantified?
The US Department of Education made an announcement that was centered around answering these questions but has also raised concerns if schools are ready to go back to large-scale assessment testing.
The office of the president stated early this year that the school district had to administer state tests, but that they would not be held accountable for the results. This was aimed at giving our teachers and administrators the information that they need to determine what the impact was from the virtual instruction that took place nationwide. This meant that districts had to implement ways to administer these assessments to both students that were learning in person and remotely. This was a huge challenge considering that the previous round of state testing had been canceled due to the rapid switch to virtual learning due to the start of the pandemic. This means that every school district missed one round of testing, while a large number of schools have not missed two rounds of state testing. We saw this in the request of states like New York, California, and Georgia. The biggest issue was the fact that even though the assessments were administered all the way down to the third grade level with the reading, students just didn't show up.
This did show that the government was willing to be flexible with how the tests were administered last school year. This shift in how the district's started testing due to the pandemic, brings up the question: Do you have your devices ready?
Due to this, districts had to manage more devices in more locations than they had ever had to do before. State assessments have a large set of requirements, with the biggest one being having to have the browser lockdown.
Every year districts had to consider the implication of state assessment testing and ensure that their devices are where they need them to be. Due to this in the coming years, preparation for testing will become a huge topic that IT professionals will be talking about. If you are not sure where your fleet stands for your next wave of testing, run an audit of your devices. If you need an easy way to do this, consider checking out this asset management software and manage all your Chromebooks here to make sure that you are in the best spot for this first testing period after the pandemic.