State education board to make decision on new state test today

The South Carolina Board of Education will meet this afternoon to make a decision on the new test the state's public school students will take starting in 2014-15.

The state has adopted the Common Core Standards, which are new requirements for what students must learn in every grade level in reading and math. Those will be taught by the start of 2013-14.

The state's existing standardized exams, including the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards, its High School Assessment Program and its end-of-course tests, can't test students' mastery of that new information, so the state has to decide what test it wants to use starting 2014-15.

The state Board of Education will consider four options: administering a new assessment developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers consortium, one of two groups of national experts and states that are creating a new exam; administering the assessment developed by the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, the second group of experts developing an exam; developing tests in-state (or "home-grown" assessments); or administering commercially developed tests.

Officials with the state Department of Education are recommending the state adopt the assessments being developed by the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium for administration beginning in 2014–15. Doing that would allow the state to become a governing member of the consortium, which means the state's input will be considered in the tests' development. Right now, South Carolina is a participating state and can't make direct assessment decisions.

Read more in Thursday's editions of The Post and Courier.