What is MAP?  

 

MAP – Exactly what the acronym stands for Measurement of Academic Progress. It gives us an idea of how students are progressing throughout the year. The information on progress that is obtained by this assessment is critical to how we differentiate for our children in the classroom.  It is a snapshot of how our students are performing overall in Math, Reading, and Language Arts.

It compares students to how OTHER students at their same age level and grade performed on the test. The test still measures how the student actually performed on knowledge of the content, but it also has comparisons to how other students around the country perform (all based on research.) How much they know and how they compare to other students in the country.

 

It is taken on the computer, not with a bubble sheet. It is adaptive – this is much like the GRE for GRAD school.  The test will adapt to how the individual student is performing on the test in real time. 

 

The students will get an initial question: If they get the answer correct, the test will provide a new question that is more difficult. If they get the answer incorrect, the test will provide an easier question. 

 

This allows us to continue to measure student progress and adjust course throughout the year. 

It gives us a baseline (September), a checkpoint (January), and final score (May).  This shows us how much knowledge your children gained in a full year with a specific teacher. 

 

We can also look at the data in some other ways – 

 

Example:

 

May to September – this shows us if students regressed from the summer.  

May to May – this shows how across years how much growth your child is making (not just within one cycle of a year).  It does not allow us to “write off” any of the summer loss.  

 

The three specific data points and how to interpret your student’s scores on the MAP

 

Three data points will help summarize how your students performed on the test:

• National Percentile ranking – compares your student to all other test takers around the country. 

• RIT Score – helps understand the “zone” that the adaptive test stopped in – this is the “RAW SCORE” that will be very useful with some tools that we will provide. 

• Growth Targets – these are goals set around how much your child’s RIT score should improve throughout a given school year, based on their performance at the beginning of this year, or the end of last year.  

 

The measure is the National Percentage Ranking 

 

This is the most normal looking number, as it is a percentage. We all love percentages because they are universal, right? PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!  The NPR is in a percentage, but we might have some perceptions about percentages. 

 

 

This NPR is not based on this scale – we need to change our mindsets around percentages to understand MAP – We are not lowering the bar, but it is like changing the speed limit from miles per hour to kilometers per hour – it’s a very different scale.. These percentile rankings show the percentage of students that scored above and below your student. 

 

EXAMPLE: If a child has an NPR of 65%, it ultimately means that they performed better than 65% of the students around the nation at their same age and grade that took the test, but 35% of the students in that same group across the country scored better.  

 

What are the schools goals?

 

We want every student to be in the 50% or higher – Again- 50% on a test is not usually acceptable, but please look closely at the difference between these two scales above. Our overall goal for every child is to be at 75% or higher – this has been defined as being “college ready.”  They will also be more likely to score higher on college entrance tests.  

 

This percentile can change every year – so if they are not in the 50% or higher – that is what we are working towards.. The RIT Score is the RAW Score – What does that mean?  It really means that the number is unique to this test – they have created their own number system.  Why is this range between 150 and 220?  We don’t know. Within the context of the MAP test, this RIT score means a lot. Once we have this RIT Score we can use it with some tools provided by NWEA – the research company that creates this assessment.  If a third grade is scoring a 218 in reading, you can see that they were performing like an average (again student scoring at the 50th percentile) 7th grader (middle of the year) on this same assessment.  Because the test is adaptive, our student in 3rd grade CAN see the same assessment questions as the 7th grader which makes this data possible. Eventually, we will have a table that correlates MAP to the STAAR test and how students will perform.

Now we move to growth targets or goals  

 

This is a total number of RIT points that a student should improve in a given year.  

 

Here is an example:

Courtney scored a 179 in Math and a 190 in Reading. According to the data and research, students in her grade level that had these RIT scores in the FALL, should grow by 13 and 12 points respectively by the end of the year. This is TYPICAL growth.  This is what we would expect to see a regular second grader that made these scores at the beginning of the year, made by the end of the year.  All 100% students MUST be hitting these typical growth targets by the end of the year.  This is OUR goal as partners.  This is the goal that we have for your student.  

BUT – we noticed something about these typical growth goals.  When students make typical growth, we see their RIT increase year after year.  

 

Let’s see what percentile ranking those RIT scores are associated with

 

We can see, if students just *meet* their typical RIT, their percentile will remain relatively constant. And they will remain far below college-readiness levels.  

So – what does all this mean?  Our students MUST make typical growth, but….TYPICAL GROWTH IS NOT ENOUGH….

 

It is NOT just about getting them into college, it is about going THROUGH college.  KIPP through College will help your child find the college that is best for your family (distance from home, cost, student support). We want to keep an eye out on the graduation rates of these schools. 

The higher your students' MAP score, the more selective the college, the better the graduation rate of that institution. 

 

What is your student isn’t performing at the 75th percentile or receiving high RIT scores?

We need this red line to have a sharper increase – which doesn’t come from just meeting growth goals – we need to exceed them. 

Let’s break this down for a moment.  When students come in around the 30th percentile, they are on track to enter a minimally selective school with roughly 30% completion rate.  

If they only make typical growth, they will exit around the 30th percentile still only on track to enter a college with roughly 30% completion rate.

 

We have made the promise to you, in your living rooms, that your students will have the opportunity to go to college – if they work really hard, and they constantly practice being nice.  

We take this promise seriously and need to ensure that the OPPORTUNITY is there.  

Here is KIPP’s new plan to ensure that we are pushing our students to make that red line have a sharper increase.  

 

Depending on your students Percentile Ranking (remember from the beginning of the presentation – the one that is NOT like the high school scale), we will be setting targets that will help to ensure that they are making MORE than typical growth.

 

Here are the percentile rankings and the amount of growth we believe that students need to make: If MAP tells us that your child needs to make 10 points of growth on their RIT score (and they are performing at the 27th percentile, we are actually NOT shooting for 10 points, we are shooting for 15 points. 

 

This is also the case of our highest performing students.  It is VERY DIFFICULT to make typical growth at these higher levels because students need to know content from other grade levels.  This means we need to differentiate for them as well.  To ensure that they are performing at their optimum levels and constantly growing, we have set the targets of 1.25 percent. 

This is a quick diagram that shows – the longer we wait to make significant growth, the harder it becomes to make the reality of more selective colleges possible for our kids.  These more selective schools have better graduation rates, which means that your child will be more likely to graduate college.  This is the goal of to and THROUGH college.  

Now keep in mind – we are not saying RICE is for everyone, but we are finding that graduation rates of institutions DOES impact and correlate to our CONNECTors success in college.  

So now that we know more about the actual test – let’s look at the specific type of results that the MAP test will provide.

 

Here is a sample of what you will see on your students score report. 

1. The first area shows when the test was taken – you can see that the report show your child’s entire history of taking this test.  We want to look at the TOP row for the most recent results. 

 

2. This middle number is the National Percentile Ranking.  It shows a RANGE because, on any given day, your child could potentially fall within this range.  We look at the MIDDLE number to show the National Percentile Ranking. 

 

3. This box shows the RIT score – this is where your child landed on the adaptive test and shows where they are most successful.  This is the number we use for all of the comparison charts (grade level equivalent/college readiness, etc.)

 

4. This is the growth goal that MAP creates for your student based on their performance.  Remember, to hit this goal is not enough – we are trying to exceed it by 1.5x or 1.25x – in this students case – she was in the 52nd percentile when she took the test in the Fall, so we want to hit 1.25 times this goal – so we are looking at a goal of 16 for her – not 13.  The RIT Growth number – to the left of this circle – shows how the student performed.