Reply to Yay! Straight P's!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Bingo! 2.0 is far easier. The benchmarks were lowered. Test scores for low income minorities were declining, and 2.0 was developed as the silver bullet to address that. Guess what? They succeed when everyone gets Ps. The map tests do not correlate to 2.0, so those scores are meaningless. They piloted a new test this year to replace map, and my guess is they will magically demonstrate progress. [/quote]
Prove it....[/quote]

I am not aware that the system is replacing MAP.  If so, that would be a major loss for parents.  Currently, the MAP test is the ONLY test that students take regularly from elementary school through high school that provides standardized, nationally normed data.  It is the ONLY test that can show improvement in a year-over-year, apples-to-apples way.  You can see if your child is making progress (or not) year after year.  You can also see if your child is performing at the 50th percentile or 80th percentile, whatever.  This is very important information for parents to have in terms of accountability.  The school system currently uses MAP as a predictor of performance on the MSA, in order to target which kids are in danger of not making the proficient benchmark or are near another cut point like between proficient and advanced.  So, MCPS might try to use MAP the same way.  MAP can be administered by the school system multiple times a year to monitor progress, while PARCC can not be used like that.

But, I think you are referring to the MSA, which MCPS will not give after this year and replace with the PARCC instead.  Some kind of standardized test to evaluate whether students have acquired on grade level knowledge is required each year under federal NCLB legislation.  MCPS has used the MSA for this, but now, with the switch to C2.0, MCPS says that the MSA no longer tests what is being taught under C2.0.  So, MCPS will switch to the PARCC (Partnership for Readiness in College and Careers) assessment system.  This is a consortium of 18 states building a K-12 annual assessment system keyed off of the Common Core Standards.

It is difficult to know how PARCC will turn out.  It certainly won't be a replacement for MAP.  There are some good aspects (cheaper to build assessment systems in consortium, theoretically and potentially better to be able to compare state-state results).  But, it will be hard to compare performance on the MSA to performance on the PARCC.  A critical thing for parents to keep an eye on is the benchmarks that are set for "passing" or "proficient" on the PARCC and what the benchmark really means.  This is very difficult to understand without being able to see the tests, see what questions a child got wrong and what the benchmarks for proficient and advanced are.  It is really important that parents insist on transparency in the PARCC.  Individual parents have FERPA rights to information about testing, but parents/citizens should also insist on regular, periodic releases of PARCC versions so that they can understand what the test is testing and what "proficiency" means.  [/quote]

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