Interesting Method of Testing for "Grade Level" this year

[Bang!Zoom!]

Long story short, the current PS could not figure out placement for dd.

This has been going on since the first month, and let me preface by saying I honestly do NOT care about testing this year.  This year is just about fitting in, getting along, and learning how to behave in a regular classroom.  Beyond that, I have no concerns.

 

The last mandated test scores (in this case, the MAP) were given, and when the scores came back, they were just under 100%.  Dd was pretty shook up over that and had a bit of a struggle keeping her composure.  Her teacher recognized her discomfort and took her out to the hallway to talk with her.  What she said was "You've been given a different set of tests than your classmates".  Apparently they can't "find" where she is at, so they've been incrementally testing her up a year at a time.  She's still hitting ceiling.

End of story is this, she started the GT program two weeks ago, and she says, "Mom, you'd approve of the work style."

 

There has been no communication between the school and home on this at all.  I find the schools method on this very odd, as well as very slow.

Just thought I would throw that out there in case any one else runs into this "you get a different test" deal. 

[Uff Da!]

nm

[kiwik]

why was she shook up. If you get 100% the test is too easy. Or did she expect to do badly?

[Bang!Zoom!]

She was shook up because the test had terms/definitions she'd never heard of before and she had to slow down and work through them carefully.  The test was four years ahead of her actual grade level.

[EKS]

The MAP is an adaptive test taken on the computer.  It should keep increasing the difficulty level automatically until the kid reaches the stop criterion (something like five in a row wrong or whatever).  The MAP gives two scores--a three digit score called a RIT score that would be somewhere between 120 and 300 or so and a percentile rank, which would not be reported as anything higher than 99. 

 

Is the MAP the test that had a score less than 100? 

 

In theory, they should be able to use data from a single administration to figure out what grade level her score would fall at the 90th percentile in the spring.  Then they should place her the next level up in the fall.  90th percentile indicates mastery of grade level material (whereas 50th percentile does not).

 

The good thing about the MAP is that if you have a RIT score, you can look up the percentile rank for each grade yourself.

 

 

[Bang!Zoom!]

I think they administered another one, maybe an Iowa or Woodcock.  Maybe they did both.  I can't remember which version uses the form/shape puzzles.

But I do know they administered MAP on 9th grade level to her.

 

They don't talk to me, and I kinda like it this way.

She's tested out on MAP at 12th grade reading, this latest one was math.

What we tried to ask them for/about was that she get a chance to work in her fluency areas, but they don't get it.  She does pretty well for herself in geometry and spacial type maths, but they don't even touch this at all.  I haven't seen anything come home for area or volume even.  They skip around the book and don't spiral because of the testing issues.  There's no following it or any way to support it at home.

No big deal though.  Just kind of fries me that they didn't tell her to start with it was slightly different than her classmates and it shook her up.  They could have taken her out or had her come in early or something.

They aren't going to be able to accurately assess her, because that content style is not how she was originally taught.