APPENDIX D: SPENDING FOR INTERIM TESTING AT THE LOCAL DISTRICT LEVEL
To estimate the expenditures made by local school districts for interim assessments, Assessment Solutions Group (ASG) conducted surveys of a small sample of local districts in California and Massachusetts (Topol, Olson, Roeber, & Hennon, 2013). The samples were selected to include small, medium, and large districts that were geographically dispersed across the states and represented urban, suburban, and rural communities. The surveys were conducted through an interview process that also collected administrative record data where available. ASG had also previously secured data on interim assessments for all of the districts in Kentucky, which is analyzed here by district deciles. Although the ASG survey asks about formative assessments and professional development costs, as well as interim tests, the data were deemed insufficiently precise and comparable across districts to be used for this analysis. Consequently, the analysis includes only the following categories of costs:
- Spending for interim or benchmark tests paid to test vendors
- Costs for internal district development and scoring of interim tests
- Assessment materials and data manuals
- Expenditures for data management systems to store and analyze testing data
- Spending for item banks and other supports for the interim testing program
The tables that follow display these local interim testing data for sampled districts, along with state testing costs, drawn from an earlier ASG study (Topol, Olson, & Roeber 2010; Topol et al., 2013). Where available, total state testing costs are shown separately from costs for English language arts (ELA) and math testing required under No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
CALIFORNIA
California’s state testing program is one of the least expensive nationally: in 2012, it cost about seventeen dollars per pupil for tests in English language arts and mathematics and just under twenty dollars per pupil for the entire state testing program, including science and social studies. Beyond the state program, an ASG survey of seven small, medium, and large districts found that all of them also were engaged in interim tests focused on improving scores on the state tests. These include a wide range of tests, from assessments developed by companies like Northwest Educational Assessment and Pearson, to locally developed tests and materials to support test preparation. Not including staff time for test administration, analysis of results, and professional development, the costs for this testing ranged from about seven dollars to twenty-nine dollars per pupil. At an average of nearly fifteen dollars per pupil, the interim tests appear to cost nearly as much as the state tests themselves.
Total state and local costs for testing in ELA and math are estimated at thirty-one dollars per pupil. Adding in other state tests, the total is approximately thirty-four dollars per pupil.
KENTUCKY
In 2012, the portion of Kentucky’s state testing program that includes NCLB-required tests in English language arts and mathematics was right at the national average: about twenty-five dollars per pupil. It is augmented by other tests, including an extensive end-of-course exam system, which brings the state testing total to sixty-three dollars per pupil.
Beyond the state program, data collected by the Kentucky Department of Education for all 174 Kentucky districts show that 93 percent of them reported costs for interim testing in 2011. Not including staff time for test administration, analysis of results, and professional development, the costs for this testing ranged from about one dollar to fifty-seven dollars per pupil. At an average of fifteen dollars per pupil, these local costs are about comparable to those for California. However, these estimates do not include other costs that ASG collected from its surveys, such as costs for data management systems and teacher scoring. Thus, these numbers underestimate local costs relative to the data from the other two states.
Table D.1 California: State Testing Costs Plus District Costs for Interim and Benchmark Tests
| Total Students | Assessed Studentsa | Assessment Costs | Other Costs | Total Costs | Per Pupil Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State tests | 6,217,002 | 5,233,539 | $78,554,442 | $24,234,000c | $102,788,442 | $19.64 |
| English language arts (ELA) and Mathb | 6,217,002 | 5,233,539 | $66,029,442 | $21,010,000c | $87,039,442 | $16.63 |
| District A | 5,472 | 3,952 | $88,248 | $4,250 | $92,498 | $23.41 |
| District B | 17,427 | 15,519 | $292,987 | $153,800+ | $446,787 | $28.88 |
| District C | 664,233 | 597,810 | $3,900,000 | NA | $3,900,000 | $6.52 |
| District D | 34,472 | 19,193 | $134,000 | $15,000 | $149,000 | $7.76 |
| District E | 131,784 | 105,490 | $222,025 | $517,500 | $739,525 | $7.01 |
| District F | 42,000 | 42,000 | $511,000 | $270,000 | $781,000 | $18.60 |
| District G | 18,500 | 18,500 | $160,000 | $40,000 | $200,000 | $10.81 |
| Seven-district averaged | $14.71 | |||||
| Estimated state plus local costs—all subjects | $34.35 | |||||
| State plus local costs—ELA and math only | $31.34 | |||||
| aWhere districts could not estimate the number of students served by interim tests, the number of total students is recorded as the number of assessed students. | ||||||
| bIncludes STAR tests in ELA and math, California High School Exit Exam, and California English Language Development Test (English language development tests). | ||||||
| cDistrict apportionments, including estimated costs for local scoring of interim writing assessments. | ||||||
| dUnweighted average of district costs. | ||||||
Table D.2 Kentucky: State Testing Costs Plus District Costs for Interim and Benchmark Tests
| Assessed Students | Assessment Costsa | Other Costsb | Total Costs | Per Pupil Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State testsc | 392,260 | $24,724,148 | NA | $24,724,148 | $51.68 |
| ELA and math | 392,260 | $9,786,887 | NA | $9,786,887 | $24.95 |
| 10th decile | 21,260 | $851,737 | NA | $851,737 | $40.06 |
| 9th decile | 40,738 | $1,217,646 | NA | $1,217,646 | $29.89 |
| 8th decile | 29,851 | $652,459 | NA | $652,459 | $21.86 |
| 7th decile | 59,904 | $1,095,338 | NA | $1,095,338 | $18.28 |
| 6th decile | 81,558 | $1,083,203 | NA | $1,083,203 | $13.28 |
| 5th decile | 25,555 | $270,293 | NA | $270,293 | $10.58 |
| 4th decile | 31,436 | $236,871 | NA | $236,871 | $7.54 |
| 3rd decile | 27,435 | $139,955 | NA | $139,955 | $5.10 |
| 2nd decile | 33,222 | $92,977 | NA | $92,977 | $2.80 |
| 1st decile | 26,236 | $33,684 | NA | $33,684 | $1.28 |
| Average cost | 377,195 | $5,674,163 | NA | $5,674,163 | $15.04 |
| Estimated state plus local costs—all subjects | $66.72 | ||||
| State plus local costs—ELA and math | $39.99 | ||||
| aIncludes cost data from 161 of Kentucky’s 174 districts (93 percent) that reported interim testing costs. | |||||
| bData regarding other costs were not available for the state or districts in Kentucky. Many districts engage in local hand scoring of assessments, as well as support data systems for managing the data, but these data were not available in the state data set that was used to construct this table. | |||||
| cIncludes English language arts, mathematics, and science tests (together at a cost of $27.29 per pupil), plus end-of-course examinations in five subjects, ACT Explore, ACT, and WorkKey. These estimates do not include the costs of scoring the Kentucky writing portfolio, which was recently discontinued. | |||||
With this conservative estimate, total state and local costs for testing in ELA and math are estimated at eighty-seven dollars per pupil.
Table D.3 Massachusetts District Costs for Interim and Benchmark Tests
| Total Students | Assessed Students | Assessment Costs | Other Costs | Total Costs | Per Pupil Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State tests in reading and matha | 509,312 | $32,469,904 | — | $32,469,904 | $63.75 | |
| District A | 24,200 | 24,000 | $1,233,000 | NA | $1,233,000 | $50.95 |
| District B | 2,530 | 2,530 | $37,100 | $19,000 | $56,100 | $22.17 |
| District C | 12,355 | 9,000 | $154,500 | $43,500 | $198,100 | $22.01 |
| District D | 55,000 | 55,000 | $1,090,685 | NA | $1,090,685 | $19.83 |
| District E | 5,398 | 5,398 | $87,455 | NA | $87,455 | $16.10 |
| District F | 22,787 | 22,787 | 274,242 | $67,750 | $341,992 | $15.01 |
| District G | 5,600 | 5,600 | $14,200 | $54,585 | $68,785 | $12.28 |
| District H | 4,900 | 4,900 | $18,987 | $30,000 | $38,987 | $10.00 |
| District I | 6,222 | 6,222 | $48,000 | NA | $48,000 | $7.71 |
| Nine-district average | 138,992 | 135,637 | $2,958,269 | $214,835 | $3,173,104 | $23.39 |
| Estimated state plus local costs—ELA and math | $87.39 | |||||
| aEstimated costs are based on Chingos (2012, p. 27), estimating spending for test vendor contracts in grades 3 through 9. These costs do not include Massachusetts high school exit exam or any other high school tests. | ||||||
MASSACHUSETTS
Massachusetts has one of the most expensive testing programs in the country. NCLB-required tests in English language arts and mathematics include open-ended items in both reading and mathematics and cost about sixty-four dollars per pupil, based on data on vendor costs collected in a Brookings Institution study (Chingos, 2012).
Beyond the state program, an ASG survey of nine small, medium, and large districts found that all of them also were engaged in interim tests focused on improving scores on the state tests. Not including staff time for test administration, analysis of results, and professional development, these testing costs range from about eight dollars to fifty-one dollars per pupil. At an average of about twenty-three dollars per pupil, both state and interim testing costs in Massachusetts appear higher than those in California and Kentucky.
Total state and local costs for testing in ELA and math are estimated at forty dollars per pupil. Adding in other state tests in ELA and math, the total is approximately seventh-nine dollars per pupil. In this case, we do not have data about the total costs of tests that go beyond ELA and mathematics.