Is There Evidence of Score Inflation on SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium)?

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 3:35 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Unpacking Testing, Redefining Justice: Leadership, Equity, and Accountability in the 21st Century (Table 3)

Abstract

Score inflation received a great deal of attention from the late 1980s through the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era of federal educational accountability in the United States, but research in this area has been lacking since the end of NCLB. This study compares trends in overall and subgroup-level mean scale scores on state tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress from states in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Consistent with the concern that score inflation may be inequitably distributed, we find preliminary evidence that trends on SBAC may (slightly) overstate gains in student learning, and that potential score inflation is much larger for White, Hispanic, and Black students than for Asian students.

Authors

• Sanford R. Student, University of Delaware

• Julie K. Snipes, University of Delaware