Working with Your TAC

1
Working with Your TAC

• Joe Willhoft
• Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
• Olympia, Washington

2
Composition of the TAC

• NTAC has seven members, representing an array of
  sub-disciplines
• Pat Almond, Univ. of OR (Special Education
  Accommodations)
• Peter Behuniak, U CONN (Contracting State
  testing programs)
• Richard Duran, UCSB (Second Language)
• George Engelhard, Emory Univ. (Direct Writing
  Scaling/Equating)
• Bob Linn, U of CO (Jedi Master)
• Bill Mehrens, Mich. State (Legal Issues Test
  Validity)
• Joe Ryan, ASU (Test Design Reporting Prof.
  Devt)

3
Who Attends Who Chairs

• NTAC meetings used to be open to as many staff as
  interested up to 40 people
• Not helpful to the Superintendent, so we have
  restricted attendance to
• NTAC members (7)
• Supt, Deputy Supt, Asst Supt for Assessment, Dir
  of Assessment (4)
• Assessment Mgt staff (3)
• Vendor staff (3)
• Invited presenters (varies)
• The NTAC is chaired by the Asst Supt for
  Assessment
• NTAC meetings are not public meetings

4
Frequency of Meetings

• Washington has four formal NTAC meetings a year
• October, January, March, July
• Oct., Jan., and Mar. are an evening plus a day
• July is two days
• Washington also has NTAC conference calls
• 3-4 hours each
• HS equating ELL equating std-setting
  check-off(as needed) Peer-Review check-off (as
  needed)

5
Crafting the Agenda

• Agendas are sent to NTAC members the week prior
  to the meeting
• Each agenda item includes a brief (25-word)
  description of the issue, plus a statement of
  what we need from the NTAC
• Discussion
• Guidance
• Approval
• About half the items have electronic support
  provided before the meeting about half at the
  meeting

6
Nature of the DiscussionTechnical vs. Policy

• Washingtons NTAC has operated since 1995, with
  the state Supt attending almost every meeting
• Some large portion of each meeting is the
  superintendents opportunity to discuss policy
  issues with NTAC members
• Issues often require dismissing vendors from the
  discussion

7
Following TAC Recommendations

• NTAC agenda items are framed as either approval
  needed or discussion and advice
• When an approval needed item is completed,
  record shows passage of a motion by the NTAC
• When the agency follows a path not fully
  recommended by the NTAC, we carefully document
  the comments

8
Documentation and Minutes

• An agency staff member takes minutes, which are
  edited by the Director of Assessment
• Minutes and agendas are filed as the public
  record.

9
Other TAC-Like Advisory Groups

• State TAC
• District-level assessment staff plus CI and IT
  staff
• Advises on operational issues of testing program
• Meets five times per year
• CAA Options TAC
• Half national experts/half in-state practitioners
• Advises on assessment alternatives for graduation
  requirements
• Meets four times per year
• Special Education Assessment Advisory Comm.
• District-level special education staff and
  administrators
• Advises on assessments for students with
  disabilities
• Meets prior to NTAC meeting (four times per year)

10
Presentation from Alaska
11
Suggestions

• As state assessment directors, we could benefit
  from shared experiences
• Should we have EIMAC collect TAC member lists?
• Les Morse, Doug Kosty and I have discussed
  attending each others TAC meetings a great
  Large Scale Assessment Conference topic!
• Other thoughts?