The State Board of Education, through the State Department of Education and in consultation with the Education Oversight Committee, shall establish an assessment system to evaluate the degree to which the purposes of this chapter are met. To that end, the State Board of Education, through the Department of Education shall:

(1) develop or adapt a developmentally appropriate assessment program to be administered to all public school students by the end of grade three that is designed to measure a student's strengths and weaknesses in skills required to perform academic work considered to be at the fourth grade level. Information on each student's progress and on areas in need of improvement must be provided to the student's parent and fourth grade teacher. Aggregated information on student progress must be given to the students' kindergarten through third grade schools so that deficiencies in the schools' academic programs can be addressed;

(2) review the performance of students on the eighth grade basic skills assessment test pursuant to Section 59-30-10, or its equivalent, for progress in meeting the skill levels required by these examinations. Student data must be aggregated by the schools the students attended so that programs' deficiencies can be addressed;

(3) review the data on students overage for grade in each school at grades four and nine;

(4) monitor the performance of schools and districts so that continuing weaknesses in the programs preparing students for the fourth grade and ninth grade shall receive special assistance from the Department of Education; and

(5) propose other methods or measures for assessing how well the purposes of this chapter are met.

HISTORY: 1993 Act No. 135, Section 2; 1998 Act No. 400, Section 15; 2014 Act No. 155 (H.3919), Section 3, eff April 14, 2014.

Effect of Amendment

2014 Act No. 155, Section 3, in subsection (2), deleted reference to exit examinations in the first sentence; and in subsection (4), deleted reference to exit examination.