Commissioner’s Memo LS-07-100 announced a field test for Algebra II tentatively scheduled for the week of October 1-5, 2007. The date for that field test now has been established as Thursday, October 4, 2007. The students who shall participate in the Algebra II field test are all Arkansas students who took Algebra II during the 2006-2007 school year.
The purpose of this field test is to conduct a trial of items; no scores will be reported to districts. Total testing time will be approximately 45 minutes, excluding time to complete student demographic information. There is also a very short questionnaire for student response. The field test itself will be comprised of both multiple-choice and constructed response items.
All Arkansas students enrolled in Algebra II during the 2007-2008 school year shall take the first operational Algebra II Exam on Wednesday, May 7, 2008. This date should be added to the testing calendar for the 2007-2008 school year.
A nine-state consortium working with ACHIEVE and a testing contractor is collaborating to develop the Algebra II Exam. The contractor for the Algebra II Exam selected by the consortium is Pearson Educational Measurement. Pearson will provide for Arkansas school districts a Scorer Training CD, which will have materials similar to those district representatives have received in scoring training sponsored by Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) and its contractors in the past. This CD will focus on Algebra II and should be distributed by Pearson in January.
The announcement of the May 7, 2008, Algebra II Exam date was set immediately following the consortium’s final deliberations regarding the scheduling of this first operational Algebra II Exam.