Lake Forest School District 67

Changes to MAP Testing - 2011-12 School Year

Optional Language Usage Subtest
Effective Spring 2012, the NWEA MAP subtest, Language Usage will become an optional test. The Assessment Committee and Administrative Team made this decision based on teacher feedback and building practices. The Language Usage subtest is currently not widely used to inform instruction or as part of goal setting. The option will be available to teachers, teams or other professionals as needed.

Commom Core Standards
District 67 changed to a new MAP test version aligned to the Common Core Standards. NWEA reported that no new test items were added. The items are now aligned to the common core standards for reporting purposes. A specific RIT score still represents that same range of skills.

In theory this should not change our aggregate or students scores. In reality, we have observed some changes in the districts median score at some grades. The changes are all within 3-points plus or minus, so would not significantly change what students have achieved or teacher’s instructional strategies. However, this is an unusual shift in our historical scores. NWEA is beginning to analyze and provide more information about the reasons for any change. One idea is that on the reading test, students are exposed to more “informational text” items than on previous tests. As NWEA shares new information, we will report back.

Every three years NWEA conducts a “norm study” which they just completed for 2011. The norm study lines up all possible RIT scores and assigns a percentile to each. A student RIT score that was, for example, at the 83rd percentile in one norm period, may end up in a higher or lower place in a different norm study. In the most recent norm study, changes are most often for students who are very low performing or very high performing. The norm study also updates growth targets – the targets are based on averages across students at every RIT score. Changes in growth targets were also impacted students at the extremes.

Many Lake Forest students are high performers on the MAP tests – therefore, changes both in the percentile rank and growth targets will be evident for many students. THIS HAS NOT CHANGED THEIR RIT SCORE OR SKILL ATTAINMENT! It only changes the comparison of rank across all the students or in how much growth the group of students with the same fall score attained. Each individual student historical report has been updated by NWEA and includes the new percentile ranks for all years.

In the next few years, NWEA plans to add non-multiple choice items to the test. Interpretation across years will be difficult until all the changes are complete, possibly in 2014-15. The changes are due to the adoption of the Common Core standards and to test higher order thinking skills. These changes will capture more of the work we in do Lake Forest and in the end be positive.

MAP testing is a powerful tool for monitoring student growth over time and this is still an important use of the test.

If you have any questions, or if you have noticed any specific differences to the fall tests, please let us know. We are forwarding our concerns and questions to NWEA.

For more information about the New Illinois Learning Standards Incorporating the Common Core, visit the ISBE website:

http://www.isbe.net/common_core/default.htm