Dive Brief:

• About 200,000 students in California attend K-8 schools that have signed on as early adopters of the Next Generation Science Standards, which were approved by the state in 2013 and will be the basis of statewide tests starting in 2019.
• EdSource reports these schools will participate in pilot versions of the new test, and, in the meantime, teachers have been seeing increasing engagement from students who are doing higher-quality work and showing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts.
• The shift to the Next Generation Science Standards, which demand multidisciplinary connections and more hands-on learning, has been difficult for teachers, who must be more patient in letting students figure things out for themselves, but many seem to see the value in the switch.

Dive Insight:

California was one of 26 lead state partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards beginning in 2011. So far, 18 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the NGSS as their own state science standards, and all are at varying levels of implementation on their way to introducing new state exams to assess student learning aligned with the standards.

Washington State is among the farthest along, nationwide. Like California it plans to pilot a new assessment this spring, but it expects to have its test fully operational during the 2017-18 school year. The Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has been working with teachers across the state to build out an internal test bank since the fall of 2015.