What type of MAP-M are 5th graders getting?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The 3-5 and 6+ tests, on average, are supposed to result in the same RIT score and the same percentile. However, the individual variation expected is among the reasons that MCPS central decided to count both the 4th-grade spring MAP-M and 5th-grade fall MAP-M (whichever locally normed percentile is higher) when evaluating those in accelerated math for the criteria-based magnet MS pool eligibility and recommended auto-placement in AMP7+/AIM in 6th, whichever is offered (each leads to Algebra in 7th).

This tends to compensate for the decision to administer the 6+ test to that population in 5th, which is consistent with what MAP is supposed to be used for -- evaluation of teaching effectiveness across populations and identification of possible strengths/weaknesses to guide teachers' approach to meet students' individual needs (not so much as a spot test without other evaluative tools for placement decisions).

MS placement in AMP7+/AIM is not limited to this centrally-identified population. Grades and later standardized test performance, along with the input of the elementary teacher/math specialist, typically are taken into consideration as MS classes are planned late in the school year for the following one. There is some variation among middle schools in what qualifies, often due to the need to keep relatively consistent/manageable class sizes, but there usually is also some flexibility in placement.

So what is the cutoff for the criteria-based magnet eligibility?

85th percentile, locally normed by FARMS-rate grouping (5 of those, as of last report, from High-FARMS to Low-FARMS). If all the group-FARMS elementaries have a distribution where it takes an RIT score of x to be at the 85th percentile among all the scores in that grouping (not nationally), then x is the locally normed 85th percentile. Sort of, that is. MCPS goes back to the national norms, finds the percentile there that most closely matches the strict 85th percentile RIT score in the FARMS-rate grouping and then establishes the RIT score from that national percentile as the 85th percentile local norm for lottery placement purposes.

As might be expected, the cutoff can be rather high at low-FARMS schools, where the cohort typically has extra opportunities for exposure to content. That last bit, though, going back to the national percentiles, ensures that anyone hitting 99th percentile nationally is not excluded, even if the strict locally normed 85th percentile might have been at an RIT score above the national 99th. (Avoiding reliance on expected statistical variation at the extremes.)

It also can vary from year to year, as can the FARMS rate group of a particular school. MCPS has not made the actual cutoffs public since a response to a request from MCCPTA a couple of years back, but parents have been able to make rough guesses after the fact by comparing scores of who got in at their school. The understanding from presentations to the BOE is that the cutoff becomes the locally normed 70th percentile for individual students receiving services (FARMS, EML, IEP or 504).

The idea is to try to identify students with ability/need for more. That used to be done with CogAT, an abilities-related test, but they had to abandon that during the pandemic and eventually went with MAP. MAP is largely an exposure-related test, and there's info on the NWEA website about not using MAP for identification/placement purposes without an ability-related measure (NWEA is the organization from which MAP originates). There also is reasoning there for using local norms, though that is often discussed by school instead of by school grouping (the same thoughts, roughly, should apply, however).

This lottery/placement paradigm was supposed to be reviewed, but, while there have been internal discussions/decisions from year to year (such as changing to use both the end of 4th and beginning of 5th MAP-M scores for those in accelerated math to adjust for using the 6+ test for those students), resourcing a formal review has been a challenge.

Thank you. Still, what ballpark raw score are we talking about in W feeders? I know they are not all the same, either.

250.

NWEA reports that "proficient" (barely passing, preparation for community college, not UVA/VT engineering) in Algebra is 238.

But even among students who already score exactly 238 in prior spring, 30% of them have a lower (non-proficient) score a year later after taking Algebra!

250 in prior year spring is nearly certain predictor of Proficient 238 at end of Algebra year. (And remember, Proficient is the minimum, not the goal.)

https://www.nwea.org/resource-center/guide/75475/When-are-students-ready-for-algebra-1_NWEA_guide.pdf/

Low FARMs and low moderate FARMS groups perform similarly (within one point) so the cutoff will be similar. 250 I believe is roughly 99 percentile and low FARMs schools cutoff is unlikely to be that RIT.

Not true at all. We were at a high farms school and multiple kids got 250 or higher.

Look, I get being defensive about your high FARMS school. I was as well. But your own child and a handful of other well-supported kids scoring about 250 isn't data. It's great for your kid and their friends, but it's not data. The MCPTA did a freedom of information (MPIA) request for the data, and here's what they learned about the cut-off, which is going to tell you something about how kids are doing at the population level.

This is for Math-M. You can see the cut-off for low FARMS schools is 232 and the cut-off for high FARMS schools is 213. Now, if you look at the list of High FARMS schools, it is *very* short. For a long time, I think we all thought the bands were equally sized, but they aren't. So that lowest score, the 213 cut-off, that's for the handful of schools in MCPS where close to 100% of kids receive FARMS.

Locally Normed Group by SES NWEA-RIT Score Nationally-normed percentile
Low 232 93
Low Moderate 230 92
Moderate 224 84
Moderate High 215 65
High 213 60

I'm shocked these are so low. They are extremely low like 2nd or 3rd grade scores.

You need to get out more.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the Fall test used for criteria based magnets? Or math class placement in 6th grade?

huh? you mean for HS?

For middle school. TPMS and Eastern.

"Criteria based" are the high school magnets like SMCS and CAP.
The middle school magnets (Eastern and TPMS) are cutoff + lottery. They use Fall and Winter 5th grade MAP scores and grades.

The letter today says the review will occur in December 2024. Does that mean it will still consider Winter Map this year? Or is that administered later?

For the criteria-based MS magnet lottery, first quarter marks and the fall MAP scores are used (better of fall or prior spring for those in Math 5/6 because of the fact that they now take the 6+ MAP). Winter MAP-R is considered for 3rd graders related to the lottery for CES (4th & 5th grade program), but not for the MS magnets. It and other 5th-grade scores/grades might be considered by the local MS for math placement in 6th grade, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the Fall test used for criteria based magnets? Or math class placement in 6th grade?

huh? you mean for HS?

For middle school. TPMS and Eastern.

"Criteria based" are the high school magnets like SMCS and CAP.
The middle school magnets (Eastern and TPMS) are cutoff + lottery. They use Fall and Winter 5th grade MAP scores and grades.

The letter today says the review will occur in December 2024. Does that mean it will still consider Winter Map this year? Or is that administered later?

For the criteria-based MS magnet lottery, first quarter marks and the fall MAP scores are used (better of fall or prior spring for those in Math 5/6 because of the fact that they now take the 6+ MAP). Winter MAP-R is considered for 3rd graders related to the lottery for CES (4th & 5th grade program), but not for the MS magnets. It and other 5th-grade scores/grades might be considered by the local MS for math placement in 6th grade, though.

Thanks. Do you know if they also consider better of fall or spring MAP for the humanities magnet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the Fall test used for criteria based magnets? Or math class placement in 6th grade?

huh? you mean for HS?

For middle school. TPMS and Eastern.

"Criteria based" are the high school magnets like SMCS and CAP.
The middle school magnets (Eastern and TPMS) are cutoff + lottery. They use Fall and Winter 5th grade MAP scores and grades.

The letter today says the review will occur in December 2024. Does that mean it will still consider Winter Map this year? Or is that administered later?

For the criteria-based MS magnet lottery, first quarter marks and the fall MAP scores are used (better of fall or prior spring for those in Math 5/6 because of the fact that they now take the 6+ MAP). Winter MAP-R is considered for 3rd graders related to the lottery for CES (4th & 5th grade program), but not for the MS magnets. It and other 5th-grade scores/grades might be considered by the local MS for math placement in 6th grade, though.

Thanks. Do you know if they also consider better of fall or spring MAP for the humanities magnet?

My understanding is that it is fall only, since there is only one MAP-R administered for all 5th graders, while there are two MAP-Ms -- those acccelerated in Math 5/6 take the 6+ version and those in grade-level Math 5 take the 3-5 version (which those in 5/6 still were taking last spring).

While average scores across large populations tend to be similar between the two tests (NWEA tries to keep the RIT consistent for continuing comparison) there is some individual variation expected with the higher level questions in the mix. Taking the same version through the year is best practice for the main purposes of MAP (which are not placement), and this is why the 5/6 students start with the 6+ test in the fall despite not yet getting to 6th-grade instruction.

The solution doesn't result in perfectly apples-to-apples, but at least they have considered some of the affects as they made the change to 6+ (5/6 students took the 3-5 version until a couple of years ago).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the Fall test used for criteria based magnets? Or math class placement in 6th grade?

huh? you mean for HS?

For middle school. TPMS and Eastern.

"Criteria based" are the high school magnets like SMCS and CAP.
The middle school magnets (Eastern and TPMS) are cutoff + lottery. They use Fall and Winter 5th grade MAP scores and grades.

The letter today says the review will occur in December 2024. Does that mean it will still consider Winter Map this year? Or is that administered later?

For the criteria-based MS magnet lottery, first quarter marks and the fall MAP scores are used (better of fall or prior spring for those in Math 5/6 because of the fact that they now take the 6+ MAP). Winter MAP-R is considered for 3rd graders related to the lottery for CES (4th & 5th grade program), but not for the MS magnets. It and other 5th-grade scores/grades might be considered by the local MS for math placement in 6th grade, though.

Thanks. Do you know if they also consider better of fall or spring MAP for the humanities magnet?

My understanding is that it is fall only, since there is only one MAP-R administered for all 5th graders, while there are two MAP-Ms -- those acccelerated in Math 5/6 take the 6+ version and those in grade-level Math 5 take the 3-5 version (which those in 5/6 still were taking last spring).

While average scores across large populations tend to be similar between the two tests (NWEA tries to keep the RIT consistent for continuing comparison) there is some individual variation expected with the higher level questions in the mix. Taking the same version through the year is best practice for the main purposes of MAP (which are not placement), and this is why the 5/6 students start with the 6+ test in the fall despite not yet getting to 6th-grade instruction.

The solution doesn't result in perfectly apples-to-apples, but at least they have considered some of the affects as they made the change to 6+ (5/6 students took the 3-5 version until a couple of years ago).

Thanks. Sounds like they don’t look at overall/past scores, which is too bad if a kid had a bad test day and got an anomalous low score. Bummer.

[Anonymous]

Jan 13 is when the notification will be sent out if a child is on the lottery pool or not.

[Anonymous]

Our school told the kids but not the parents. Very little communication from our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school told the kids but not the parents. Very little communication from our school.

To be exact, they told the kids right before the test, and my kid told me surprisingly when they usually don't as they have neurodiversity. It would be helpful if they had told parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid scored 250+ and I thought they did well

For a 5th grader that's a great score. At some schools, 250+ indicates they are algebra-ready. A score of 275 indicates they are proficient in Algebra. There's usually a 15-20 point drop for high-scoring kids when they switch from the MAP 3-5 to the MAP 6+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school told the kids but not the parents. Very little communication from our school.

To be exact, they told the kids right before the test, and my kid told me surprisingly when they usually don't as they have neurodiversity. It would be helpful if they had told parents.

Do you think you can prep them or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school told the kids but not the parents. Very little communication from our school.

To be exact, they told the kids right before the test, and my kid told me surprisingly when they usually don't as they have neurodiversity. It would be helpful if they had told parents.

Do you think you can prep them or something?

Absolutely not! It would be just nice to know that the test is now MAP 6+ for those in 5/6 Math so one understands the scoring appropriately and why there is often a drop in scores as others have alluded to earlier. Just send a one line email to parents MCPS. Seriously. Communication is terrible in this district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school told the kids but not the parents. Very little communication from our school.

To be exact, they told the kids right before the test, and my kid told me surprisingly when they usually don't as they have neurodiversity. It would be helpful if they had told parents.

Do you think you can prep them or something?

Absolutely not! It would be just nice to know that the test is now MAP 6+ for those in 5/6 Math so one understands the scoring appropriately and why there is often a drop in scores as others have alluded to earlier. Just send a one line email to parents MCPS. Seriously. Communication is terrible in this district.

Or you can take the bold step of chilling the f out. The scales are calibrated for seamless transition between tests, and the reports show huge statistical sampling error bars, and they show percentile placement among peers.

The people crying about dropping scores due to test differences are talking about kids who either are so far off the end of the scale that the test score is meaningless anyway, or kids who had learning loss and regression to mean after temporarily learning some extra math skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school told the kids but not the parents. Very little communication from our school.

To be exact, they told the kids right before the test, and my kid told me surprisingly when they usually don't as they have neurodiversity. It would be helpful if they had told parents.

Do you think you can prep them or something?

Absolutely not! It would be just nice to know that the test is now MAP 6+ for those in 5/6 Math so one understands the scoring appropriately and why there is often a drop in scores as others have alluded to earlier. Just send a one line email to parents MCPS. Seriously. Communication is terrible in this district.

Or you can take the bold step of chilling the f out. The scales are calibrated for seamless transition between tests, and the reports show huge statistical sampling error bars, and they show percentile placement among peers.

The people crying about dropping scores due to test differences are talking about kids who either are so far off the end of the scale that the test score is meaningless anyway, or kids who had learning loss and regression to mean after temporarily learning some extra math skills.

Even this statement would have been helpful so I don't need to bother people like you when parents are basically asked to trust MCPS with everything no matter what. "The scales are calibrated for seamless transition between tests, and the reports show huge statistical sampling error bars, and they show percentile placement among peers."
Thanks and have a great day!

[Anonymous]

That "seamless transition" is true across large populations. The studies on the NWEA site indicate there is higher variance on an individual basis (both higher and lower) when moving from one version to the other. This infidelity to individual[/] academic progress is among the reasons MCPS allowed [i]either the spring of 4th grade MAP-M (3-5 version) or the fall of 5th grade (6+ version) to qualify under the locally normed percentile paradigm for those taking the 6+ version.

MAP is not the right testing tool, by itself, for placement purposes, as also is noted in studies on the NWEA site, but, rather, might be used to supplement decisions where a measure more directly related to ability (vs. achievement) is the principal tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That "seamless transition" is true across large populations. The studies on the NWEA site indicate there is higher variance on an individual basis (both higher and lower) when moving from one version to the other. This infidelity to individual[/] academic progress is among the reasons MCPS allowed [i]either the spring of 4th grade MAP-M (3-5 version) or the fall of 5th grade (6+ version) to qualify under the locally normed percentile paradigm for those taking the 6+ version.

MAP is not the right testing tool, by itself, for placement purposes, as also is noted in studies on the NWEA site, but, rather, might be used to supplement decisions where a measure more directly related to ability (vs. achievement) is the principal tool.

PP thank you for this detailed and informative answer!