Smarter Balanced Math Practice
Montana Smarter Balanced Assessment. Smarter Balanced is aligned to the Common Core State Standards for math, which Briveli covers comprehensively.
Spring (mid-March through end of school year, district-selected window)
Computer-adaptive
No calculator in grades 3-5. Grades 6-8 have the embedded SBAC calculator on the calculator-allowed segment of the CAT and on the performance task (four-function in grade 6, scientific in grades 7-8).
Four achievement levels: Level 1 (Novice), Level 2 (Nearing Proficient), Level 3 (Proficient), Level 4 (Advanced)
About the Smarter Balanced
Montana administers the Smarter Balanced math summative to all students in grades 3 through 8 plus grade 10, branded simply as the Montana Smarter Balanced Assessment by the Office of Public Instruction. The state has been a SBAC governing member since the consortium's launch and uses the unmodified consortium item bank, the standard CAT plus performance-task design, and the 2000-3000 vertical scale. Montana is unusual in that it tests at grade 10 rather than grade 11 for high school, which makes the K-8 portion of the assessment the most consequential block of the year for both Title I accountability and the state's GEMS reporting site.
Montana renames the four SBAC achievement levels to Novice, Nearing Proficient, Proficient, and Advanced — the only state that uses 'Novice' as the lowest tier rather than SBAC's default 'Below Standard'. Proficient is the federal accountability bar, and Montana publishes school-, district-, and state-level math proficiency rates each fall on the GEMS (Growth and Enhancement of Montana Students) public dashboard. Family score reports are paper-based and arrive through the district in the late summer; they include the overall scale score, achievement level, and claim-level feedback.
Official source: https://opi.mt.gov/Educators/Teaching-Learning/Assessment
Practice by Grade
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