This does sound very similar to NWEA's MAP test and I wonder if the state will create a new test from scratch or use/improve upon the existing MAP format.

I have been following the Common Core State Standards and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium for awhile (for my job), and I don't believe they have selected a test vendor yet. I would not be surprised if NWEA bids on the contract, but they will face competition from ETS, Pearson, etc.

Absolutely

Terry, I think a lot of people will have a similar reaction to this change. I agree that many parents and most teachers already know where each student stands. But do the students? Seems like a silly question. I've seen the NWEA MAP test (addaptive test that measure growth) deployed so that the student understands their strengths and weaknesses. The students develop goals based on specific weaknesses, and shares them with Mom and Dad at student-led conferences. You can't do that with the MEAP - mainly because the result don't come out until January. Sidebar: While driving a group of sixth grade boys home from school, I heard one ask "What did you guys score on the Math MAP?" When I was a kid, we compared our times in the mile run, or levels on Super Mario Bros.

Terry,
That's a good point. Although there are many jokes in the current system, it's tough to determine which is the biggest. Kids that were once separated from the general population to work on special needs have been merged into the traditional classroom; creating a lower lowest common denominator. What are the benefits/consequences? English language learners are placed in a traditional classroom, and may get an hour with a para-pro. There seems to be no discussion on this topic.

I've seen the MAP test used to group kids by ability in an NHA charter school, in combination with class work. For core subjects, students are grouped together by skill in 'rotations.' Rather than teaching 6 subjects, teachers specialize in 3; and the students rotate through three classrooms during the day. For each grade, there's one math teacher, one science teacher, one social studies teacher; and your homeroom teacher does reading/ELA and spelling.

I agree that students have a general understanding of where they stack up amongst their peers; but meeting one-on-one with your teacher to understand your weaknesses and set goals, and then follow up on those goals, is quite different than just knowing where you fit in the classroom hierarchy.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Do you really know how your child is doing? If the school's or teacher's standards are too low and your child is acing tests, is he really succeeding? If the school's or teacher's standards are too high and your child is getting D's, is he really failing? Are you viewing his success as relative to others in the school, which may not be equivalent to state, national, or world standards. Our MEAP cut scores were recently drastically altered because kids our state considered proficient were considered not proficient by national standards. How many of those parents thought their child was doing fine because the teachers and the state claimed they were?

If your child is behind, do you know how far behind he is? If he is ahead, do you know how far ahead he is? Tests teachers and the state gives don't measure this. If your child flunks a fifth grade literacy test, is he reading at a fourth grade level or a second grade level? The teacher might be able to tell you this. If your kid aces a fifth grade math test, is he ready for math at a sixth grade level or an eighth grade level? The MEAP can't tell you and the teacher probably can't either since he likely has never been given math tests for those grades.

We can have a sense of where our children are at, but appropriate testing can help pinpoint where they actually are and confirm or correct our estimates.

Terry, some school districts are beginning to group by ability again and have shown great gains. Here are some articles on them.

http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-danville-high-school-students-on-the-cutting-edge-of-learning-20120426,0,3211774.column

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-07-05-grade-held-back_N.htm

Dswan - ".. mainly because the result don't come out until January."

People often wonder how technology may be used to improve education. Why the non-essay portion of the test isn't available the next day is ridiculous.

Right, we will know the results in days now with this testing scheme.

David, some schools actually give the parents a written evaluation of their student's academic and other progress 'every week', not months. Of course, these are private schools, with teachers usually earning less than public schools, and parents paying tuition less (or a lot more) than what the govt hands over to the public schools each year, but , of course, the parents have to still pay their fair share of school taxes, but they want the best for their children, and, as a result, will pay more That's our system, at least we still have the freedom of choice, and that choice is getting larger, ie the public charter schools starting in Detroit. Parents are choosing schools based on performance, not the other way around. It's about time!!

Correct

The only problem there is that China and Japan 'stack their deck' so to speak....they use the test scores of their best students. They do not represent a true picture of the national student populous.

Check out Washtenaw Technical Middle College (themiddlecollege.org), a charter high school where students in grade 10-12 transition to college classes at Washtenaw Community College. Upon graduation from high school, students either have an Associates Degree or certificate and credits transferable to 4 year colleges at NO COST to the student or their family. Imagine earning your bachelor's degree at 20 or 21 at half the cost. Would it work for every 15 to 18 year old? No. But it's an option that should be available for kids that are capable. It would increase competition among colleges, many of whom charge an arm and a leg for classes led by teaching assistants. More could open if Rick Snyder included offering a high school program as one of his best practices for community colleges.

China and Japan? How about Russia? Russian 3rd grade Math is higher than American 6 grade. To talk about Science, Russian kids learn separate subjects such as Botanics, Zoology, Biology, Physics, Chemistry. Russian kids start LEARNING foreign language at 5th grade. I emphasize LEARNING, because our kids were introduced to Arabic, French, Spanish and German in 5 weeks during 5th grade. And the same nonsense continues in 6th grade. BTW, Russian classroom size is normally 40 kids, and parents are not allowed to be 'helpers' in the classroom. Russian teachers DO NOT have a union. So my unorthodox idea is - how about we learn from RUSSIA? Isn't that embarrassing?

It's likely they would have passed their previous grade if they didn't know the material. Schools have elected to promote students regardless of their academic performance for social reasons. It's time to refocus our schools back on academic goals; not social, not sports; learning.

Absolutely agree! And we are never given the test results till the end of the year. How can we improve on any weaknesses? Not to mention the actual test scores have almost nothing to do with the child's knowledge. The test can be easily attributed to child's ability to understand particular phrasing or the environment the test was given - we had a crazy teacher last year who managed to have half of the class take an exam while sitting on the floor. I would rather fire that teacher than take MEAP test results into consideration. The teachers are playing politics and our kids are paying for their career driven poor professionalism.

Hi Sara, you can find MEAP results here: http://patch.com/A-1PzQ