CASE STUDY: TEST VIEW APPLICATION
Richland School District Two, Columbia, SC

Student Population:
1998 - 16,000
2005 - 20,000

Educational challenges and governmental regulations require a powerful tool.
In 1998, the South Carolina Legislature passed the "Education Accountability Act" which set standards for student performance and accountability. Today, "No Child Left Behind" federal regulations require schools to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress". In addition, the student population of Richland School District Two continues to grow by several hundred students per year.

Administrators wanted assessment to drive curriculum, but it was very difficult and time consuming to accomplish. They asked themselves:

• How can we leverage internet technology to consistently and easily measure student, teacher, and school progress across the entire district? 
• How can we relieve the administrative workload for our teachers, give them a teacher-friendly system that they will want to use, and free them to do what they do best? 
• How can we stay one step ahead of the increasing governmental regulations and reporting requirements without putting additional burden on our staff?
• How can we save time and money, yet maintain our focus on academic performance district wide while tailoring our curriculum to the "individual student"?

Data-Driven decision making
For Richland District Two, the answer was partnering with VC3, Inc. to create and implement a web-based application that provides a searchable database of student test data integrated with the existing SASI (Schools Administrative Student Information) data. TestView allows teachers and administrators to easily track progress and generate reports based on a number of criteria and compare multiple test results side by side.

TestView impacts the classroom everyday!

• Class Preparation- Now the administrative workload that once took hours of manual labor at the beginning of the school year, takes only minutes. 
• Academic plans - Students scoring below "Basic" must be given tailored academic plans.
• Now these plans are generated consistently and automatically with pre-selected criteria from the district and additional teacher input. Also, "no show" letters to parents who fail to attend the parent teacher conferences are generated automatically. 
• Low Performance Resolution - Now teachers can determine if a student is falling behind due to lack of motivation, or effort, or inability by reviewing historical data, test scores, and other factors instantly. Problems are addressed immediately. 
• Teacher Self Assessment - Now teachers, especially in exit level grades (5th, 8th, and 12th) can review summaries of their student's test scores regardless of where the hard copy of the tests are stored, and analyze their own teaching performance. 
• Well Rounded Approach - The Integration of TestView and SASI allows for the triangulation of several measures on one screen. Now teachers and administrators can allocate resources and take measures to address the overall welfare of each student. 
• Lesson Presentation - With detailed and current data on each student, teachers are able to craft their presentations to accommodate students that are at level 2, as well as challenge students at level 4. Now lesson plans can focus on individual students. 
• Statistical Accuracy and Reporting - Now administrators have the assurance that test scores will be presented and analyzed in a statistically accurate manner across the district and TestView facilitates the required reporting.

Benefits from the Technology Point of View:

• Distribution - Because the system is web-based, school districts do not have to install client software at each location. Schools in rural locations have the same access as suburban areas and can begin using TestView quickly by simply having users login.
• Maintenance - With no hardware of software to be maintained at the user level, there are fewer points of failure and therefore less maintenance. The school district can host TestView or it can be hosted at VC3's data center. 
• Training - Due to rigorous usability studies conducted prior to deployment, TestView's user-friendly interface requires little training. Therefore it is implemented easily and used frequently. 
• Test Framework - Administrators can maintain the system and import test scores by themselves, without relying on an outside vendor. The flexibility of the framework allows VC3 to modify and support new test types as needed. 
• Future Application Integration - The design allows for an aggregate of information, which has been gathered from various systems, to be pulled together in one place. Future applications will be easily integrated, whether they are Windows or Portal applications.