As students in grades 3, 5, and 7 prepare to take ERB tests in October, I want to share a little bit about the skills these tests assess and how Darlington uses them to make decisions.
What Are They?
The Educational Records Bureau (ERB) is a nonprofit educational organization that oversees the development, administration, and scoring of standardized tests, and is the “industry standard” among American independent schools. Darlington School administers and analyzes results from two tests offered through the Educational Records Bureau: CPT5 (multiple-choice) and WrAP (writing assessment).
The multiple-choice CPT5 test (administered in the fall to grades 3, 5, and 7) is a battery of subtests designed to provide information about a student's performance in several key areas: auditory comprehension (third grade only), verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension, word analysis, writing mechanics, and mathematics.
The WrAP test (administered in the spring to grades 4, 6, and 8) is a writing assessment that measures a student’s ability to respond to a prompt in the areas of idea development, organizational support, sentence structure, word choice, and mechanics.
How Do We Use Them?
While the CTP5 subtests track student growth over time in grades 3, 5, and 7, the faculty and administration primarily use aggregate test results as a tool to evaluate classroom instruction over time, make decisions about curriculum, and track academic progress and trends.
From Darlington’s perspective, the ERB assessments (CTP5 and WrAP) provide a window into student learning and can highlight trends in achievement. The results guide academic discussions internally regarding where the school would like to focus instruction and where the school is excelling. ERB test results provide a measuring tool for how Darlington can make improvements in our skills-based curriculum and the effectiveness of our curriculum from year to year.
For example, over the past few years, the faculty and administration have been able to track the progress of our Orton-Gillingham literacy instruction in Pre-K to 3 and how those instructional practices have impacted student progress over time in the areas of reading comprehension, word analysis, and verbal reasoning.
In addition to literacy instruction, the test results can also highlight areas of focus such as mathematics and quantitative reasoning. After tracking trends in the area of mathematics, the Pre-K to 5 academic team researched and implemented a new multi-sensory math resource, Math in Focus, for the current academic year. The new math resource streamlines our scope and sequence while focusing our instruction through common math language and the concrete–pictorial–abstract instructional model.
Writing instruction is another important area to track progress through both the CTP5 and the WrAP assessments. Both assessments focus a unique lens on specific writing mechanics and writing concepts and skills. The results are used to guide the scope and sequence of our writing instruction.
What to Keep in Mind
Each year, we are reminded that ERBs are simply a snapshot in time of a student’s performance. Test-taking skills, nerves, and general unfamiliarity with standardized tests (particularly in the younger years) can affect scores. The ERB results are always best considered alongside the student’s performance in the classroom and are most useful as an internal tool by the school.
Most importantly, ERBs are not a summary of all qualities needed to be a successful student. The CTP5 and WrAP do not measure study skills, organizational skills, collaboration skills, cooperative skills, communication skills, or creativity– all qualities considered critical in the 21st Century. As educators, our role and responsibility are to develop and foster these important life skills in our students.
