The 2015 Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) assessment brought new changes for Missouri schools. After Fulton Public School students were sent home with their spring assessment individual scores on Aug. 24, Fulton School District district officials emphasized that the 2015 ELA and math results cannot be compared to results from previous years.
Specifically, because of the revisions to the Missouri Learning Standards. The assessments are new - they are designed differently and incorporate new academic standards and different learning expectations. Making future comparisons will be "almost impossible to show any kind of growth" since schools will receive a different assessment for spring 2016 -18, according to Assistant Superintendent Suzanne Hull.
Hull said the key change is that overall, the standards and the tests are more rigorous.
Hull said elementary school students have been learning from the Missouri Learning Standards since they were in kindergarten and first grade. However, middle-school students have experienced a change in the standards since they were elementary students.
"We went from grade-level and course-level expectations to the new standards, and so there are gaps in content with the new standards that some of the students have not been exposed to," Hull explained.
According to Hull, there were three major shifts in the English and language arts (ELA) and math standards. The changes for ELA, Hull wrote in an email, include "building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction; reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational; and regular practice practice with complex text and its academic language."
Hull also described the three major shifts in the new math standards. In the same email, Hull wrote that math changes reflect "a greater focus on fewer topics; coherence - linking topics and thinking across grade levels; and rigor."
The new grade-level assessments have been designed to utilize technology in schools. The 2015 spring assessment marked the first year the state administered online ELA and math assessments for students in grades three - eight and online science tests for students in grades five and eight. High school students have taken the state tests online since 2010.
"For an 8 year old to take a test online, that was a little bit challenging, but I think our students were well-prepared to do their best," Hull said. "We weren't really sure what to expect," Hull said. "And so we were really pleased with our results for it being the first year for a more rigorous test.
Hull explained why the Algebra I test results appear much lower compared to the state's data of students who scored proficient or advanced. She said the majority of Algebra I students took the Algebra II test last year. Hull added that higher performing students took the Algebra II test instead of the Algebra I test.
"Unfortunately, those Algebra II scores don't count into our APR, but for this current school year, we changed it so that they will be taking the Algebra I assessment even though they're in Algebra II this year," Hull said. "They'll be taking the Algebra II end-of-course (EOC) assessment in December, so we will have those scores."
She added that the scores will be reflected in the overall Algebra I scores. In the past, the eighth grade students would take the Algebra I EOC assessment but they would not count toward the high school score.
"It was the best thing to happen for those kids in that class - to be assessed when they were taking it - but it hurt us from the state perspective on our scores," Superintendent Jacque Cowherd said."We restructured the way they take the test to meet the state objectives and try to have a more accurate reflection on our scores."
Cowherd added that it seems convoluted, but districts do that because of the way state legislature and state rules amount, the way it's reported and the way it's counted into the state's accreditation or APR.
Cowherd addressed the significance of various types of assessments as an educational tool to track students' progress:
"We're putting our resources in the next couple of years into systems that allow the teachers to do those forwarding assessments every day and track those, where in the last couple years, the state focus has been on these state-wide testing, and that's where we put our resources for professional development. But since it's so convoluted, and the standards keep changing in the legislative process, we can't be sure of what the targets are for the next two to three more years, so we're doing those internally to make sure our kids prepared for work when they leave and are prepared for a successful life."
Cowherd added that the district has felt pressure from the state to do more, mentioning that in the past five years, the district has spent over $3 million on professional development to prepare for testing. Now that the test has changed, no one has offered to refund that money or help with the next test, the superintendent said.
"We feel like we're focused and our teachers are focused every day, but it's a difficult moving target," Cowherd said regarding the financial adjustment to prepare for the new learning standards.