Benchmark Interim assessments

[Anonymous]

How do kids do on these assessments and what are they used for beyond grade 2/3?

[Anonymous]

They are used in every year of ES.

[Anonymous]

For what purpose?

[Anonymous]

Central office requires the assessments in ELA (and English for middle/high school) at least twice a year (middle and end). Some years our kids have also taken a beginning-of-year assessment, which I think is optional for schools. It is one of the tools they use to evaluate whether kids are learning what they should.

FWIW my kid is in middle school and is taking the Study Sync interim assessment this week. And there is a high school version for English 9/10 based on the MCPS curriculum. They will be doing this until they get to an AP/IB class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Central office requires the assessments in ELA (and English for middle/high school) at least twice a year (middle and end). Some years our kids have also taken a beginning-of-year assessment, which I think is optional for schools. It is one of the tools they use to evaluate whether kids are learning what they should.

FWIW my kid is in middle school and is taking the Study Sync interim assessment this week. And there is a high school version for English 9/10 based on the MCPS curriculum. They will be doing this until they get to an AP/IB class.

That's great to know. I get that some people don't like benchmark but it's fine.

[Anonymous]

These assessments are super lame, clunky in their interface, difficult to navigate, and inevitably end up with way too many students just choosing random responses because they can't figure out how to give the answer they think is right, or can't figure out how to navigate the passages. Ugh, I hate administering it so much, and it's an entire instruction block wasted.