Assessment Stories

In our corporation we have very high test scores on ISTEP. This is usually corporation wide. However over the last few years, I feel like we have been tampering with a variety of assessments especially at the primary level. We began with giving a standardized test just in the spring. We found this to be unnecessary. We were not using the information for anything, but to give parents an idea of how they left K, 1st and second grade. We then moved to using it twice a year, first in the fall and then in the spring. This particular year the corporation ordered the wrong test. In the spring they ordered the Kindergarten version for first graders. Well of course students seemed to have made huge gains and therefore miss information was sent home. We were directed to just send the scores home. Needless to say we did not do that test again. We since have gone to the NWEA assessment as our formal assessment for all students. We do these 2 times a year. Sounds great, we can use the information to see growth and we can use it to guide instruction. However because it is done in grades 1-4, and ISTEP is done we had to move back the second test to February. So we now do it in October and February. Yes we can see growth and we can look for information to guide instruction, but there is not end of the year information to see the growth from that instruction in May. What does it really tell parents?

Along with this we got rid of doing a writing assessment each quarter. We now do one the second week of school and the second to last week of school. This is fine to show growth from start to finish. However there is not a common assessment that gives the teacher more direction in writing instruction. I think this would be helpful when taking our students to our intervention teams, if we did it quarterly.

For more information on NWEA testing visit the following website.

http://www.nwea.org/