Iready

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iready is a valid test. Those whose children score poorly on it will naturally discount it. The kid didn't try, wanted to go to recess, etc. You'll see the excuses come out for the non-motivated students. That provides insight into the academic and emotional iq of that child. Some children are bright, very few are exceptional. Like very few.

Teacher here. It is not a valid test for above average kids. With kids with severe gaps then yes. It is meant to be a screener. Which is why I don’t understand why they need to take it more than once.

+1 at my kids’ school it seems to be only used to identify those kids who are below grade level and need extra help, especially in terms of pull-outs for reading. If the kid scores within average range or even high it doesn’t change anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my kids are in AAP and have tanked the i-ready for years. It's a seriously flawed test considering that they hit perfect SOL scores and my oldest got a perfect algebra readiness test.

My kid also scores a lot higher on tests like CoGAT than i-ready. He says if he finishes i-ready early they let him play games, so he rushes.

That's another thing that will make the percentiles quite a bit off. Some kids are stubborn and will spend tons of time trying to figure out how to solve the above grade level problems that they've never truly learned. Other kids will decide that they're sick of taking the test and will just click things to be finished. Some kids will try their hardest on everything, even when the test is effectively meaningless in FCPS. Other kids recognize that there's no real point in earning a super high score and won't really try. My older kid generally underperformed on iready relative to CogAT and IAAT. She tried hard for maybe 30-40 minutes of the test, but after that was just ready to be done with it all.

People with kids in FCPS advanced/AAP math should check the grade level of the math iready that their kid is given. That will affect the score and percentile ranking. My kid in advanced math at the base school was always given the iready that corresponded to the grade. My kid at the AAP center was given the iready that corresponded to the level of SOL taken. This means that kids in 6th grade AAP math, as well as 5th graders or lower bumped up into the 6th grade AAP math class all took the 7th grade math iready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iready is a valid test. Those whose children score poorly on it will naturally discount it. The kid didn't try, wanted to go to recess, etc. You'll see the excuses come out for the non-motivated students. That provides insight into the academic and emotional iq of that child. Some children are bright, very few are exceptional. Like very few.

Teacher here. It is not a valid test for above average kids. With kids with severe gaps then yes. It is meant to be a screener. Which is why I don’t understand why they need to take it more than once.

+1 at my kids’ school it seems to be only used to identify those kids who are below grade level and need extra help, especially in terms of pull-outs for reading. If the kid scores within average range or even high it doesn’t change anything.

This. I'm the parent with the kid who scored 100 points over the 99th percentile cutoff. This in addition to other things led to a few long phone calls with the FCPS math coordinator at Gatehouse. He admitted that FCPS doesn't pay any attention at all to high iready scores and doesn't do anything with them. For my kid, the extremely high score should have flagged my kid for some stronger interventions. It didn't and won't in the FCPS system. Parents and perhaps a few teachers are the only ones taking note of the kids scoring above the 99th percentile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iready is a valid test. Those whose children score poorly on it will naturally discount it. The kid didn't try, wanted to go to recess, etc. You'll see the excuses come out for the non-motivated students. That provides insight into the academic and emotional iq of that child. Some children are bright, very few are exceptional. Like very few.

Teacher here. It is not a valid test for above average kids. With kids with severe gaps then yes. It is meant to be a screener. Which is why I don’t understand why they need to take it more than once.

+1 at my kids’ school it seems to be only used to identify those kids who are below grade level and need extra help, especially in terms of pull-outs for reading. If the kid scores within average range or even high it doesn’t change anything.

This. I'm the parent with the kid who scored 100 points over the 99th percentile cutoff. This in addition to other things led to a few long phone calls with the FCPS math coordinator at Gatehouse. He admitted that FCPS doesn't pay any attention at all to high iready scores and doesn't do anything with them. For my kid, the extremely high score should have flagged my kid for some stronger interventions. It didn't and won't in the FCPS system. Parents and perhaps a few teachers are the only ones taking note of the kids scoring above the 99th percentile.

You called the "FCPS Math Coordinator" at Gatehouse--multiple times--and had "long phone calls" for him to explain to you that no one pays attention to i-readys? Oh man, you need to pace yourself here with FCPS.
All they care about is if your SECOND GRADER is roughly around grade level or just a little below. They don't have a magic enrichment bell that rings when a kid scores above average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Seriously. Literally no one suggested that the rest of the country is full of dullards, and that FCPS has an absurd share of gifted kids. Also, literally no one has suggested that there are "hundreds of students scoring 40 points above the 99th percentile." The claim was 50-100 kids scoring 30-40 points over the 99th percentile.

Iready, like almost all nationally normed tests, likely does not include an affluent, tiger mom area with large numbers of kids in enrichment programs in their norming group. Across the country, there would likely be many more than 1% of the kids scoring above the 99th percentile. This same phenomenon occurs with CogAT and NNAT. There's a reason that over 10% of FCPS kids score in the top 2% of the nationally normed CogAT, and it does not mean that FCPS kids are just that smart. Every single other affluent, educated area with motivated parents sees absurdly many kids scoring 132+ on the CogAT. The norming is not accurate at the high ends.

This is funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iready is a valid test. Those whose children score poorly on it will naturally discount it. The kid didn't try, wanted to go to recess, etc. You'll see the excuses come out for the non-motivated students. That provides insight into the academic and emotional iq of that child. Some children are bright, very few are exceptional. Like very few.

Teacher here. It is not a valid test for above average kids. With kids with severe gaps then yes. It is meant to be a screener. Which is why I don’t understand why they need to take it more than once.

+1 at my kids’ school it seems to be only used to identify those kids who are below grade level and need extra help, especially in terms of pull-outs for reading. If the kid scores within average range or even high it doesn’t change anything.

This. I'm the parent with the kid who scored 100 points over the 99th percentile cutoff. This in addition to other things led to a few long phone calls with the FCPS math coordinator at Gatehouse. He admitted that FCPS doesn't pay any attention at all to high iready scores and doesn't do anything with them. For my kid, the extremely high score should have flagged my kid for some stronger interventions. It didn't and won't in the FCPS system. Parents and perhaps a few teachers are the only ones taking note of the kids scoring above the 99th percentile.

You called the "FCPS Math Coordinator" at Gatehouse--multiple times--and had "long phone calls" for him to explain to you that no one pays attention to i-readys? Oh man, you need to pace yourself here with FCPS.
All they care about is if your SECOND GRADER is roughly around grade level or just a little below. They don't have a magic enrichment bell that rings when a kid scores above average.

No. I had the calls to figure out math grade skips for my kid and math placement options. Over the course of the calls, I brought up that my kid's iready score should have been a red flag that he needed more than just a single grade math skip at the time. He admitted that they don't really look at iready scores, and skips only happen if the principal feels like doing so and if Gatehouse approves. The kid in question is now much older than 2nd grade and is taking AP calculus earlier than FCPS generally allows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Seriously. Literally no one suggested that the rest of the country is full of dullards, and that FCPS has an absurd share of gifted kids. Also, literally no one has suggested that there are "hundreds of students scoring 40 points above the 99th percentile." The claim was 50-100 kids scoring 30-40 points over the 99th percentile.

Iready, like almost all nationally normed tests, likely does not include an affluent, tiger mom area with large numbers of kids in enrichment programs in their norming group. Across the country, there would likely be many more than 1% of the kids scoring above the 99th percentile. This same phenomenon occurs with CogAT and NNAT. There's a reason that over 10% of FCPS kids score in the top 2% of the nationally normed CogAT, and it does not mean that FCPS kids are just that smart. Every single other affluent, educated area with motivated parents sees absurdly many kids scoring 132+ on the CogAT. The norming is not accurate at the high ends.

This is funny.

Nice way of ignoring everything that was said.

Really, though. The "nationally representative" norming group is not going to include kids who are homeschooling because they're very advanced. It's not going to include private school kids. It's not likely to include kids in dedicated magnet or gifted programs. It's not likely to include kids in super affluent areas. It's not likely to include kids who are being instructed at school using above grade level materials.

At the low end, it's also not going to include kids in separate SN programs for ID. Both the very low and very high ends for the norming group are not going to represent the population as a whole. FCPS and any other affluent area will be overrepresented in the 99th percentile, because a large portion of kids are being instructed using above grade level materials, which is not common in ES across the country. Also, a large portion of kids are taking outside enrichment, which is also not common for ES aged kids across the rest of the country.

For iready, none of this matters. The main point of the test is to find kids in regular public schools who need interventions. Some areas use it to help identify kids for gifted placement, but they aren't going to need accuracy at the ceiling of the test. There's no reason for iready to even care about accurate norming at the 1st-2nd percentile or the 98-99th percentile.

[Anonymous]

If only 39,000 fifth graders in the entire country are scoring above 524 in math, and only 78,000 score above 520, do you not see how it is statistically impossible for 100 Fairfax kids to have a 564?

Tigermoms roam everywhere. If using SD, back of the envelope calculation says there would be fewer than 1,000 kids scoring above a 536 in the ENTIRE country. Yet Fairfax has 100 scoring 24 points HIGHER.

Egads. Stop. Stop. Stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to see if my child might be placed in a better class. He scored at 93% in I Ready math and 91% in IReady reading on the last report. According to his teacher some students score 30 to 40 POINTS above the 99th percentile. Since these scores are way above the 99th percentile. am I being told the truth? I guess if there dozens of little geniuses at the school, he's just looked at as average.

Across the entire county, there are maybe 2 or 3 kids per grade level scoring 100 points over the 99th percentile line. There could easily be another 50-100 kids scoring 30-40 points over the 99th percentile line. Keep in mind that kids who are taking math classes at AoPS or RSM could be far above the grade level being assessed in the iready.

Oh boy. Math is hard. For example, there are 3.9 million fifth graders in the country according to the NCES. Assuming Iready ain't lying and the 99th percentile is...well...the 99th percentile, then according to math, there are 39,000 fifth graders scoring at the fifth grade 99th percentile. We know that isn't the case cuz not every fifth grader takes an Iready assessment. But whatevs.

Of those 39,000 99th percentile kids, how many score ten points over the 99th percentile? Well, using the Iready percentile chart, scoring a 524 will get you the 99th percentile. Scoring a 520 gets one into the 98th percentile, or 78,000 kids score ABOVE this. The difference of 4 points knocked out 39,000 kids from getting into that 99th percentile. I guess it could be that America's little geniuses ALL score well above the 99th percentile; that is each kid scoring above the 99th percentile didn't just eke into that category. But that kind of flies into the face of common sense. So if scoring 520 to 524 loses 39,000 kids, one must assume that the rate of degradation will be the same and would be linear. But let's pretend it isn't. Let's pretend that for every 5 point score above 524 that we lop off half of that amount. My trusty abacus says that there will be a loss of 19,000 kids between a 524 score to a 529. Again, I am being generous. If that is the case, scoring 5 points above the 99th percentile cut line leaves us will approximately 19,000 kids in America proudly still standing. Let's do it again. Let's assume that an additional 5 point increase will cut another half of kids. That'll leave 9,500 kids left. Do it one more time and be only 15 points over the 90th percentile and you're left with...drum roll...4,750 kids in America scoring 15 points above the 99th percentile. Yee haw. 'Merica. Keep at it, you say. 5 more points and you're at 2,350. 5 more, 1,175. And finally 5 more for a total of 30 points above the 99th percentile and you're at 587 precious little snowflakes scoring 30 points above the 99th percentile.

Of those 587 kids, each region of the country will have their fair share. Those tiger Moms out in the Bay area and Irvine say hi. Let's give the West 20% of them. Don't forget about those brilliant New Englanders. Son of Chad and Buffy of Cos Cob checking in. The southeast and Floriduh gotta be good for 10%. Fly over country around Iowa and Chicago maybe another 10%. Texas 5%. New York New York, yee of the magnet schools, with New Turnpike and Pennsylvania...You get the idea. This is a big country outside our fair area. Well, you get the idea.

Virginia is home to 8.6 million people. Fairfax has 1.4 million peeps. I'm going to WAG that there are 10,000 students in Fairfax County, representing about .2% of America[s fifth grade student enrollment. We're told by the poster above that there are 100 kids scoring 30 points above the 99th percentile. Out of the 587 kids in the entire country. Yeah, no.

Your understanding of how norming a nationally representative sample is very flawed. You are bringing an arithmetic mindset to a probabilistic math problem. They don't have data on all kids and the data they are missing is likely--like most norming systems-- systematically distorted to under-represent the extremes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If only 39,000 fifth graders in the entire country are scoring above 524 in math, and only 78,000 score above 520, do you not see how it is statistically impossible for 100 Fairfax kids to have a 564?

Tigermoms roam everywhere. If using SD, back of the envelope calculation says there would be fewer than 1,000 kids scoring above a 536 in the ENTIRE country. Yet Fairfax has 100 scoring 24 points HIGHER.

Egads. Stop. Stop. Stop.

First, the distribution of Iready scores is likely not normal and probably has a long, lumpy right tail, so you can't extrapolate the counts in the right tail using normal z-scores.

Second, FCPS has a lot of high-achieving kids compared to the rest of the country. As an example, out of 1.5 million seniors, 16,000 were national merit semifinalists. 238 of these semifinalists were from FCPS. If you apply the same ratio to the 39,000 figure above, you might estimate that 580 fifth graders are scoring above 524.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If only 39,000 fifth graders in the entire country are scoring above 524 in math, and only 78,000 score above 520, do you not see how it is statistically impossible for 100 Fairfax kids to have a 564?

Tigermoms roam everywhere. If using SD, back of the envelope calculation says there would be fewer than 1,000 kids scoring above a 536 in the ENTIRE country. Yet Fairfax has 100 scoring 24 points HIGHER.

Egads. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Oh FFS. Are you just not comprehending all of the previous posts about issues with the norming group? I mean, seriously? For the millionth time, no one here is saying that FCPS has 20% of the 99th percentile scorers in the country. What has been argued is that the norming group is not likely to be inclusive of high or low end outliers in the first place, so the high and low ends of the curve are not going to be accurate. This is the case also for the CogAT and NNAT. The tests will end up with like 3-5% of the kids earning scores above the 99th percentile cutoff score of the norming group.

They also can't norm for kids high into the 99th percentile. There is no reason for any gifted, magnet, private, or homeschool programs to administer iready at all or agree to be in any sort of norming population, since the test will give them no useful information. They simply are not going to have data for outliers.

30-40 points above the 99th percentile cutoff by iready terms corresponds to placement in math classes 2 grade levels higher. That's honestly not that rare, and being two grade levels ahead would not correspond with the 99.99th percentile, as you are suggesting. 99.99th percentile kids in 5th grade are in like Algebra II. They wouldn't be appropriate placed in "7th grade math", which is where iready charts place them.

In this thread, there is a poster who says that her kid scored in the 30-40 points above the 99th percentile cutoff. That poster also said that their kid isn't a prodigy, is taking outside math classes, and loves math. You should believe that person when they say that their kid is not a 99.99th percentile kid, and that such scores are achievable in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

My reading of this thread is that the entirety of whipsaw smart kids reside only in Fairfax County. Sounds right for us as a group!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iready is a valid test. Those whose children score poorly on it will naturally discount it. The kid didn't try, wanted to go to recess, etc. You'll see the excuses come out for the non-motivated students. That provides insight into the academic and emotional iq of that child. Some children are bright, very few are exceptional. Like very few.

Teacher here. It is not a valid test for above average kids. With kids with severe gaps then yes. It is meant to be a screener. Which is why I don’t understand why they need to take it more than once.

+1 at my kids’ school it seems to be only used to identify those kids who are below grade level and need extra help, especially in terms of pull-outs for reading. If the kid scores within average range or even high it doesn’t change anything.

Another teacher here. It's also used for AAP (the files all contain references to the i-ready).

I HATE the test but the county pushed it in order to stop having teachers spend time doing individual assessments like the DRA that take a long time to do but are MASSIVELY more useful. It's a central decision and they spent a lot of money on licensing, so we're stuck until the next good idea bubbles out of the gatehouse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My reading of this thread is that the entirety of whipsaw smart kids reside only in Fairfax County. Sounds right for us as a group!

In that case, your reading comprehension is quite poor. My guess is that you're the same poster making wild conjectures about the number of kids scoring high into the 99th percentile, and you're not bright enough to understand the issues with the norming of the test at the high ends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If only 39,000 fifth graders in the entire country are scoring above 524 in math, and only 78,000 score above 520, do you not see how it is statistically impossible for 100 Fairfax kids to have a 564?

Tigermoms roam everywhere. If using SD, back of the envelope calculation says there would be fewer than 1,000 kids scoring above a 536 in the ENTIRE country. Yet Fairfax has 100 scoring 24 points HIGHER.

Egads. Stop. Stop. Stop.

First, the distribution of Iready scores is likely not normal and probably has a long, lumpy right tail, so you can't extrapolate the counts in the right tail using normal z-scores.

Second, FCPS has a lot of high-achieving kids compared to the rest of the country. As an example, out of 1.5 million seniors, 16,000 were national merit semifinalists. 238 of these semifinalists were from FCPS. If you apply the same ratio to the 39,000 figure above, you might estimate that 580 fifth graders are scoring above 524.

I'm on your side, but using National Merit SF is a horrible example. Every state takes the top 0.5% of scorers in their state, and every state has a different cutoff. FCPS does have an abnormally large share of kids above the national merit commended cutoff, which is the same for all states.