CRITERIA FOR SUBSTITUTING SOME OTHER ASSESSMENT FOR HSA

Research Assistant: Min Liu.

The problem is about substituting other respected test, for example, an advanced placement test, in place of the HSA test for students who have studied the material prior to high school and/or are advanced well beyond that material in their high school courses. And then we need to assign a proficiency level for such students at the same time their peers are taking the HSA tests for that purpose (typically 9^th or 10^th grades); Furthermore the existing tests (SAT Subject-Matter Tests, College Board Advanced Placement Tests and International Baccalaureate are the only testing programs we know of for this) are more appropriate for seniors. How about the other tests beyond above three? Our work will answer these questions: What should the criteria be to permit such a substitution? What should the appeals process be for a county to get permission to make that substitution? My job will center on the first step that survey what testing programs may exist as candidates for this and get specifics from all of them. Then we can use them to propose some rules and criteria for substituting assessment for HSA. Cooperating with MSDE people, we also need to survey schools to see what they need and suggest for addressing the problem.