The End of CAPE?

[Anonymous]

In one of the other threads it was mentioned that they are not using cape next school year (26-27). However I can’t find any information stating that on their website. Does anyone have any details or has heard this?

[Anonymous]

This 10 year old Wikipedia article suggests that the “Smarter Balanced” assessment mentioned in the PCSB thread is the same thing as PARCC. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarter_Balanced_Assessment_Consortium

Until I see something from OSSE, I’d assume some confusion due to a mix-up in terminology.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t the same as PARCC, it is a different Common Core test. PARCC was a consortium. When all the states dropped out DC renamed it to CAPE. Now DC is joining the other consortium called Smarter Balanced. It looks like the biggest difference is it is adaptive, and the scoring is 1-4.

It isn’t the “end” of CAPE. They’re just switching exams. They call it CAPE 2.0.

I don’t know why they didn’t do this 2 years ago when PARCC collapsed. Switching to a DC-specific PARCC exam for two years if they were just going to join the opposing consortium anyway seems like a lot of unnecessary transition.

This information was sent to all schools and OSSE and PCSB held meetings this week. Teachers were informed. I’m sure they’ll put it in the next newsletter.

[Anonymous]

The most annoying thing about PARCC/CAPE was the total lack of score crosswalk to anything meaningful. How behind is a 2? How ahead is a 5? Why are so many fourth graders getting 5s in math and so few 9th graders? Is that just higher score cutoffs or does it actually represent something? By contrast, the tests NAEP gives let you do a lot more in the way of meaningful comparisons. How does the new test work when it comes to this?

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t do that. NAEP is designed to compare in that way. The new test is another Common Core test designed to measure if kids have mastered the common core standards. States can compare to each other I assume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn’t the same as PARCC, it is a different Common Core test. PARCC was a consortium. When all the states dropped out DC renamed it to CAPE. Now DC is joining the other consortium called Smarter Balanced. It looks like the biggest difference is it is adaptive, and the scoring is 1-4.

It isn’t the “end” of CAPE. They’re just switching exams. They call it CAPE 2.0.

I don’t know why they didn’t do this 2 years ago when PARCC collapsed. Switching to a DC-specific PARCC exam for two years if they were just going to join the opposing consortium anyway seems like a lot of unnecessary transition.

This information was sent to all schools and OSSE and PCSB held meetings this week. Teachers were informed. I’m sure they’ll put it in the next newsletter.

I’m a teacher in DCPS and this is news to me. I hope the test is shorter.