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CASAS and YouA brief overview on what CASAS is and how it can help you and the

student

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What is CASAS?

•Comprehensive•Adult•Student•Assessment•Systems

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What does the CASAS do?

• It helps keeps our program running• It helps the office know where to place students in our program.• It measures where a student starts for the school year and keeps

measuring them throughout the school year• It helps the instructor know what areas their class as a whole is

struggling with.

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Every Year

• Appraisal: This tells us where to place the student.• 1 Pretest: This sets the baseline for measurement for the entire fiscal

year.• Post test(s): These test monitors a student’s skill level in the assessed

modality throughout the year. (Multiple Post tests are given throughout the year)

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Every Class/Semester

• One Entry Record (BLUE)• One Update Record (GREEN)

Without these forms AND their pre and post test, a student is invalidated from the reports we generate for the state and federal government and therefore are ineligible for earning our department funding.

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Pretests• Must be given as soon as possible and NO LATER than 12 hours of instruction.• This sets the baseline score and level for the student for the year. By waiting until

after a significant amount of instruction takes place, it makes it that much harder for the student to make/show any gains.• Because student’s only pretest once a year, they might not be designated to test

during your class’ pretesting session.• Student’s may also be enrolled in another class and will be testing there instead.

• ONLY GIVE TESTS TO STUDENTS DESIGNATED BY THE CASAS COORDINATOR.• All tests are NOT created equal.• There is no DEFAULT test.

• Please plan ahead and have an alternate assignment prepared on testing days for non-testers. • This can be a review of already covered material, so although they are reinforcing material,

they are not learning something that others may not have been given yet.

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Post Tests• During Fall and Spring Post testing occurs twice:

• after 60% of instruction and • 90% of instruction.

• This is due to the fact that we are an open entry/open exit program.

• Students testing in the first session will have a minimum of 20 hours or more because they have been enrolled since the beginning of the semester.• Students who were designated to take a test and missed class should NOT be

admitted into class again until they have met this requirement.

• Students testing in the second session will include all those who didn’t have enough hours to test in the 1st session and those may have had a significant amount of instruction and did not complete a level during the 1st session.

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Reports

• After Pretesting and Post testing, I email you two different reports.• RED: These are the student’s scores. Pretest reports will differ from post

testing reports (Learning Gains vs Student Gains).• GREEN: These reports inform you as to what areas your students as a class

are having trouble with. (Student Content Standards Performance Summary)

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CASAS Reminders

• There is NO default test for any class. • Please do NOT give a student a test just because you have a leftover test.

• Only students who have been designated to test in your class, should be testing in your class.• Some students have already tested, not ready to test, tested in another class.• Have an alternate review assignment for these students ready.

• Everyone designated to test MUST test in order to continue to attend class.• When in doubt, call/email the office.

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Thank You!

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BLUE Entry Record Form

BACK

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GREEN Update Record Form

BACK

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Learning Gains Reports

• This is the report I email after the majority of your students have completed pretesting. The “Last Test” Column gives you a starting score to use for the student for the current semester.

• The Left report shows you students who have taken their first test of the year this current term. The Right report shows you students who have tested in a previous term. In both cases, you use the “Last Test” listed as their starting point for the semester.

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Student Gains Reports1. Hours of Instruction: This is how many instructional

hours a student has across all classes for the entire fiscal year.

2. Site-Class: This tells you which class a student has taken a test in. This is a great clue as to how long a student has been attending in our program and whether they have completed a class they previously began.

3. Form: This tells you what test form (and level) a student has taken. This can give you information as to whether “Next Test Level” shock may have played a factor in a students new score.

4. Score: These are CASAS scale scores and are the same across all levels and modalities of tests.

5. Level: These are CASAS levels which are based on the National Reporting Systems (NRS) functioning levels. These do NOT correlate with the AED levels we use here at Cerritos.

6. Gain: This is the amount of points gained from the first test to the HIGHEST test (this isn’t always the last test).

7. Compl. Level: This means a student has completed the NRS functioning level they began with.

8. Adv. Level: This means a student is now functioning at a new, higher level.

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NRS* Levels versus Cerritos College Adult Ed Levels(*National Reporting Systems)

NRS Level NRS Name CASAS Range Adult Ed Level Adult Ed Name(preferred names to avoid confusion w/ credit ESL numbers)

ESL 1 Beginning Literacy 180 and below ESL 1 Low BeginningESL 2 Low Beginning 181-190 ESL 1 Low BeginningESL 3 High Beginning 191-200 ESL 2 High BeginningESL 4 Low Intermediate 201-210 ESL 3 Low IntermediateESL 5 High Intermediate 211-220 ESL 4 High IntermediateESL 6 Low Advanced 221-235 Suggested Credit (or ESL 4) Suggested Credit (or ESL 4)

**For our department, also includes any ESL students who have scored suggested credit in ESL Reading and are now taking Math.

NRS Level NRS Name CASAS Range Adult Ed Level & Name CDE* GRADE Levels(*California Department of Education)

ABE 1-3 Beginning Literacy 141-200ALL

GED Prep, Math Prep,

and High Level ESL students

01-belowABE 2 Beginning Basic 201-210 02-03ABE 3 Low Intermediate Basic 211-220 04-06ABE 4 High Intermediate Basic 221-235 06-08ASE L Low Adult Secondary 236-245 09-10ASE H High Adult Secondary 246 and above 11-12

CASAS Form Levels (from lowest to highest)This can be used in conjunction with the Skill level Descriptors I sent you as well.

A 081R, 082R, 031M, 032MAX 081RX, 082RXB 083R, 084R, 033M, 034MC 185R, 186R, 035M, 036MD 187R, 188R, 037M, 038M

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Content Standards Summary (Test Item & Content Standard)

This report pinpoints content standards that the class as a whole is having trouble with. Breaks down content standards by test and test item for each form given during testing. It links the main content standards and then breaks them down further to additional, more specific content standards. It also will tell which content standards are addressed in multiple test items.