District Announces MAP Meeting

From SPS Communications:

Families and parents will have a chance to talk with Seattle Public Schools staff on April 4 about the 2011 "re-norming" of their children's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test – as well other questions related to MAP testing. The meeting will be held 5-6 p.m., in Room 2700 at the John Stanford Center. SPS staff, including Mark Teoh from Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) and Bob Vaughan from Advanced Learning, will be joined by John Cronin from the Northwest Evaluation Association (the makers of the MAP assessment).

The meeting will take place prior to the School Board meeting. For questions about this event, please contact the REA department at research@seattleschools.org.

Family and Parent meeting on MAP testing

Wednesday, April 4 from 5-6 p.m.

Room 2700
John Stanford Center
2445 3rd Ave. S.
Seattle, WA 98134

Comments

suep. said…
John Cronin of NWEA wrote a letter to the Charleston School District in 2010 explaining that the MAP® test was not designed to be used as a tool to evaluate teachers and should not be used that way.

I contacted him in April of 2011 and asked if he would send a similar letter to our school district -- which is misusing the MAP® test to evaluate teachers, effectively turning it into a high-stakes test for our kids and teachers -- and he indicated to me that he had written his letter at the request of the Charleston School District (which implies that he might write a similar letter to SPS if someone from the district were to request it).

Here's his info:
John Cronin,
Kingsbury Center
Northwest Evaluation Association
5885 SW Meadows Road Suite 200
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
(503) 624-1951
john.cronin@nwea.org

I also wonder if the MAP® test was intended to be used as an identifier or gatekeeper for gifted students and whether or not it is considered an accurate tool for that. The recent "recalibration" fiasco which changed some kids' scores so drastically, knocking some kids out of gifted/advanced learning contention and vice-versa, based only on a data dump (essentially) calls this into serious question in my view.

Maybe someone can ask him about SPS' misuse of the MAP when he's in town next week.

I have written about this here: MAP test manufacturer warns: MAP test should NOT be used to evaluate teachers. — So why is Seattle Public Schools doing just that?

and here: 15 Reasons Why the Seattle School District Should Shelve the MAP® Test—ASAP
3/26/12, 12:00 PM
MAPsucks said…
Over $2.4M of the Fed TIF grant is going towards VAM of teachers. You should ask for a complete accounting of WHAT they are doing with that money.
3/26/12, 12:19 PM
suep. said…
LINK CORRECTION (from above post):


John Cronin of NWEA wrote a letter to the Charleston School District in 2010 explaining that the MAP® test was not designed to be used as a tool to evaluate teachers and should not be used that way.
3/26/12, 1:22 PM
dan dempsey said…
Testing ... Testing and Reporting in the SPS.

Consider the School Progress reports for Middle Schools and the "Ready for High School Math" percentages.

I just calculated the Math pass rates and compared them with the percent of students "Ready for High School Math"

Perhaps if Mr. Teoh has time he could explain what ready for high school math means.

HERE ARE THE NUMBERS ... so is grade infaltion at AKI responsible for the SPS report cards reporting about double the percentages of students at AKI as ready for high school math as can pass the 8th grade MSP?
3/26/12, 2:52 PM
dan dempsey said…
I meant 8th grade MATH MSP test.
3/26/12, 2:53 PM
Anonymous said…
I wonder if one of you could help us on this. My daughter has had the same MAP math score since the spring of ’10.

Her lowest strand scores have been in algebra which I assume is because she hasn’t had been exposed to it. Our primary concern is that she has shown no growth in math. Is that to be expected because she had an outlying score originally? Or should we have involved her more with outside lessons. How is 240 compared to a 5th grade APP class and what math placement should we anticipate for next year?

Exam RIT Percentile Grade
2011-2012 Winter 240 94 5th
2010-2011 Spring 241 98 4th
2010-2011 Winter 242 99 4th
2010-2011 Fall 231 98 4th
2009-2010 Spring 240 99 3rd

-fuzzy math
3/26/12, 5:37 PM
Anonymous said…
To Fuzzy Math - when my daughter was in 5th grade, she had a similar math RIT score (243 on the winter of 5th grade math test). My daughter is good at math but I am sure that there are APP kids with higher scores. So based on a sample size of 1, I'd say your daughter has a typical math score for an APP kid.

Since you are asking about math placement, I'm assuming your daughter is moving from a neighborhood elementary school to APP for 6th grade (if she was at T/M or L@L presumably you would already know her placement). For what it's worth, our daughter switched from a neighborhood ALO school in 5th grade to APP in 6th. Her initial placement based on her 5th grade teacher recommendation was to go into 7th grade (Spectrum) math. We requested that she be bumped up to 8th grade APP math (I think this is called 6HH math). We then had our daughter cover the 6th and 7th grade math curriculum at home during spring of 5th grade and the summer before 6th grade. This worked well for us, and our daughter did well in 6th grade APP math.

Jane
3/27/12, 9:01 AM
Anonymous said…
p.s. to fuzzy math - our daughter's RIT score went up to 259 in spring of 5th grade. My guess is that it went up because we had her studying the 6th grade curriculum. But who knows. I would worry less about the MAP scores and more about the content that she seems to be learning. If you are going to have her learn math at home, I would avoid the CMP text books like the plague.

Jane
3/27/12, 9:03 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more