Bee More Than A Test Score

"Students will be expected to know the difference between informative/explanatory and opinion writing by the time they enter kindergarten..." I know a lot of adults who have a hard time differentiating between informative and opinion writing. And some of them have spent their whole career teaching! Isn't FOXNews counting on people not knowing the difference for their viewership?

If 61% of parents are refusing the testing, why is the school board trying to come up with ideas to change their minds?

A few days ago, I met with my child's principal, the director of the assessment office, and my child's teacher regarding the MAP test. In the meeting, the teacher confirmed that my child seems to be taking the test, as my child told me. Both the principal and the assessment guy reiterated that my child is not taking "enough" time on the test. Yet, the computer threshold for "you are not taking enough time" is set even lower than the amount of time my kid is taking. In the conversation, I found out that the MAP test seems to only be used to confirm when a child is performing poorly in class. Other than that, this test is only used as an insignificant portion of making decisions about students. Most decisions are made using teacher observations and classroom grades. The school system uses MAP to confirm the results as it transitions from MSA to PARCC. At the end of the meeting, I reiterated my decision that I do not want my child to participate in this test anymore and that I want the school to offer an alternative activity during the test. The assessment director told me he has to take that to his superiors because there is no framework for parents to make that decision.

So, now I am supposed to set up a conference at my child’s school. The assessment director claims he is going to attend and provide all of my child’s scores and testing times. My child’s teachers are supposed to enlighten us about observations of how my kid takes this test. The only response I have received from the school regarding any of this is to give them times I am available and they will check their “master calendar” to see if they can squeeze me in.

By the end of my phone call, I felt like I had been heard. They thanked me for raising some important questions. Of course, as my comments indicate, nothing much got done.

My child mentioned taking this test again sometime in January/February 2014 and again near the end of the school year. I was pregnant and then had a baby during that time, so I was too tired to try to investigate. I didn’t see another score report until the end of September 2014. It was for the Spring 2014 administration and only had a score for math, nothing for reading. My child had not missed school, so I was confused about the missing reading score. But even more confusing was that the math score was a few points lower than it had been on the first report we got. So, did my child get dumber over the course of 3rd grade in math? I mean with the debacle that was the first year of Common Core, it was quite possible. But that’s another story. My main concern was the “informative” paragraph above the scores that tells parents: “[School system] will use the MAP test this year to monitor students’ academic performance and progress at the district and school levels. The test results will not be used as part of the students’ grades. Along with other test results, quizzes, class work, teacher observations, and other measures, MAP results will help [school system] make the best possible decisions for all students.” Really?? And what great decision do you make when a least one kid’s score decreased over the school year? So, I went on a more thorough internet hunt for info. I found a couple of critiques of the MAP test that mentioned that the scores are unreliable and vary widely. My school system had nothing about this test on their website. So, I wrote a long email to the system’s assessment office with all of my questions about the MAP test. I sent it to several people listed on their website who had titles that sounded important. My first email went unanswered for several days and some of the email addresses were no longer active. I sent it out again and to a few more people listed as working in that office. This time I got a reply that they would be happy to talked to me on the phone. Of course, we don’t want any written record!

I have sent an email to my child’s public school principal informing him that I refuse to let him participate in the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test. I am waiting to see what happens. Since there is not a lot of info to be found online about opting-out of standardized tests in Maryland, I figured I would start a blog. Maybe what I am doing can help someone else. Maybe someone sees this and can help me with whatever happens. This is not a knee-jerk reaction on my part. And I am not just looking for a fight. I reserve judgement on the other standardized tests for now. My decision to stop this particular test for my child is based on the fact that the scores that come home do not make sense. My child has also told me about an error in one type of question. My child’s scores are inconsistent from one administration of the test to the next. The MAP tests in reading and writing are advertised as adjusting itself to the student’s ability. So, when the math score at the end of a school year is lower than that at the beginning of that school year, does that mean the student has lost mathematical knowledge over the course of the year? When a student’s reading score increased by 12 points from one fall assessment to the following fall assessment, but then decreased to almost the original score with the winter assessment, surely there is a problem with the test! The irregularity my child told me about happened in questions that allow the student to select “all that apply.” From what I was told, these are questions where there are a lot of choices and several of them are correct, so you click each one that is correct. However, apparently when you accidentally click a wrong choice, you cannot un-click it. I have already been in contact with the school system’s assessment office twice. First, I questioned the math score issue. Then, I let them know about the issue with the questions. Now, I have sent another email regarding the inconsistency in reading scores. I will detail my prior interactions with the assessment office in another post. I did not contact my child’s school regarding the tests before now, because I wanted to go right to the source of the assessments instead of getting lost in the bureaucracy.