#map test

I have had a couple of back-and-forth exchanges with the assessment office in the last week. I have received no response from my child’s school itself on the testing issue. The summary of my emails with the assessment director regarding the discrepancy in my child’s MAP test scores are below.

I am now being told that they do use the MAP test on an individual basis to assess “indications of college and career readiness (at their grade level), students who are meeting grade level expectations, and students who appear to be in need of academic intervention.” That is totally contrary to what the assessment office told me last October, when they said they only looked at aggregate scores of various groups. I received no further explanation when I pointed out that they have told me these two different things.

On the issue of my child finding a type of test question at does not operate properly, they say they couldn’t find that problem and have had no other complaints.

On the issue of my child’s scores fluctuating when the only direction they could go is up, they are still claiming that my kid didn’t take the correct amount of time. However, here, the times the assessment director quoted me are for scores that were never reported to me. So, I feel like he purposely picked data that supported his cause since I told him which score reports were missing. I have also gotten conflicting information from the assessment office regarding the average amount of time the MAP test is supposed to take. In October, they told me 40-60 minutes. Now, the director is telling me 35-50 minutes.

I have asked whether it is possible that my child misread an early question on the test which then caused the test to give easier questions for the rest of the time. This would result in both a lower score and less time needed. They don’t have any information on how the questions progressed. That’s all kept secret by NWEA, who makes the MAP test. The school also doesn’t receive the testing times, only the score. Only the assessment office gets the times.