Standardized Assessment Tests Coming Soon

Spring is upon us, and soon school-age children across the country will begin, or may have already begun, taking a series of standardized assessment tests. These are the tests that hold schools accountable for high academic standards.

Educators know that in this era of mandated accountability, summative year-end assessments are not enough to ensure that students learn and schools make adequate yearly progress. That's why educators are searching for easy and effective ways to measure and assess student progress throughout the school year—in time to intervene early and often, in areas students are lagging—long before it is assessment testing time.

The most obvious—and indisputable—way to help struggling students is to give them multiple opportunities to take the exam again, before and after completing 12th grade. Another essential step is to provide remediation and other supports.

Teachers are searching for new tools to help students combat exit exam failure.

Educators are seeking ways to bridge the gaps in learning along the way, not just to identify problem learning areas at the end of the school year. Such a solution would enable learners to receive assignments that focus on just their individual needs, not a whole host of content they are already good at.

Students are held to a number of standards each year. And PLATO Learning has developed a solution that arms teachers with the tools they need to target individual areas of need along the way, as well as a personalized plan for each student based on their individual performance.

PLATO® Test Packs with Prescriptions

PLATO® Test Packs with Prescriptions have been developed to provide grade-level reading/language arts and mathematics fixed benchmark assessments for grades 2-11. PLATO Test Packs include personalized, prescriptive assignments to PLATO® content targeted to each student's areas of need. With a diagnostic assessment, the learning path prescribes specific content to target each learner's unique areas of need. Without an assessment, teachers would assign the entire title, and learners would work through all the modules in a title.

Test offerings include three cumulative, comparable test versions—a pre-test, a mid-test, and a post-test—which automatically adjust instruction over time to track student progress against standards. Test Packs give teachers the flexibility to choose to have the PLATO Learning Environment™ automatically prescribe assignment or make manual adjustments themselves before assigning lessons.

Consistent alignment between test items and PLATO instructional content assures that learners follow individual learning paths that assign rigorous reading/language arts and mathematics instruction. And because students can access PLATO instructional content wherever they have Internet access, teaching can extend beyond the classroom.

State-specific Test Packs are available for more than 20 states. These are based on state content/curriculum standards and are updated as state standards change. The National Test Pack is designed using National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards, as well as standards from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation index of "A" states.

With PLATO® Test Packs with Prescriptions you can easily assess a student's abilities and knowledge, that are linked to standards and documented so that everyone—students, parents, and educators—understand what is being assessed along the way, not just at the end-of-year.

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