At a meeting on Tuesday, legislators and education officials discussed the possibility of reworking the state’s grading system and implementing different forms of education.

The Interim Senate Education Committee heard from representatives of the Success-Ready Student Work Group, which is made up of more than 100 stakeholders, for input into the design of the new statewide evaluation system.

Competency-based education is a system in which content is advanced by demonstrating proficiency rather than by age or time spent by students on a subject.

Committee Chair Senator Karla Eslinger (R-Wasola) was optimistic about the working group’s efforts.

“By combining the Success-Ready Student Work Group with this grant opportunity, Missouri has a real opportunity to improve its assessment process, and this new model will allow students to perform and is achieving all year round,” Esslinger said.

The grant Eslinger mentioned is for Pathway for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Pedagogical Embedded Evaluation (PIE) project. DESE recently received more than $2.5 million from the US Department of Education for this project.

The PIE project will produce a prototype test that will be woven into the lessons and formally implemented at the end of the year assessment. Incorporating assessment into learning will allow researchers and teachers to see student performance while learning and collecting data that can be used for assessment purposes statewide, according to the grant announcement.

One of the problems the Success-Ready Student Work Group faced was: How to redesign the assessment system (including MAP) to prepare for high school, college, career, and the workplace. Can you ensure that students are mastering the priority standards that ensure compliance with and meet federal requirements?

The Missouri assessment program, commonly referred to as the MAP test, is a statewide assessment that meets federal data requirements, but Missouri has some autonomy over what the test looks like, said Pam, who facilitated the work group. Hedgepes said.

“So you’re doing away with the year-end MAP test?” asked Sen. Elaine Gannon of R-De Soto.

“We are looking for a reimagined rating system,” Hedgepeth said.

Esslinger said states will need to collect data from specific subjects and grade levels, as they do for MAP tests, but states are looking at other ways to provide that data.

Some states are taking steps to change how they are evaluated. Some new assessment designs include assessments embedded in teaching (such as PIE projects), performance assessments (where students demonstrate their skills), and replacements of traditional graduation requirements.

Recommendations from the working group meetings since January are:

• Create policies that support competency-based learning.

• Create competency-based assessments.

• Build a revised accreditation system.

• Launch “innovation zones” to implement new practices.

• Expand the ability of school districts to partner with businesses on learning experiences.

• Model stakeholder engagement and good communication.

Esslinger said the debate on competency-based learning and assessment is integral to the work of Commission members in education legislation.

“We need to know if we’re getting the job done,” Esslinger said. “And without an actual measure of the amount of learning and whether or not we’ve met the standards and communicated that to the people who are learning, how else do we know if we’re getting the job done?” Can you tell? Will you invest in our children?”