Infotech Lead America: The Virginia Department of Education offers SAS analytic software and Interactive Achievement (IA) to help school districts better assess and measure student growth.
IA assessments can complement state testing conducted in support of Standards of Learning (SOL) for Virginia Public Schools. SAS Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) for K-12 can be used to analyze formative test results.
Through additional standards-based assessments and more frequent student growth analyses, teachers can identify opportunities for student improvement and have a clearer view of their own performance.
SOL establishes minimum expectations for what students should know and be able to do at the end of each grade or course in many different subject areas.
Through the collaboration between SAS and IA, Virginia districts can implement growth assessments in math, English, science and social studies.
IA tests give teachers additional indicators of student performance, while EVAAS measures and reports on student growth and offers one important perspective on teacher effectiveness. Additionally, EVAAS projects each student’s likelihood of success on future assessments and college readiness benchmarks.
IA, which also provides assessments for kindergarten to second grade that are not covered by the state’s SOL tests, offers all assessments online. IA currently provides various assessment and reporting services to more than 100 Virginia school divisions.
Jacob Gibson, vice president of Business Development at Interactive Achievement, said: “IA’s student growth assessments combined with SAS’ EVAAS system will provide an invaluable measure of student and teacher performance.”
SAS EVAAS for K-12 is used by more than 2,000 districts in more than 20 states to measure students’ progress and the effectiveness of teachers, schools and districts.
Nadja Young, Education Specialist with SAS State and Local Government, said: “At the same time, SAS EVAAS will provide more diagnostic information to guide their own professional development.”
