Assessment Plan
| The Rochester School Department recognizes that adopting high standards
without a means of measuring progress toward those standards will be
meaningless. Accordingly, the Department has engaged in a process for
assessing the district’s progress in the areas of student achievement,
quality of teaching, including review of the professional development
program, and overall district performance. |
Grade Assessment |
Type |
Main Purpose |
Grade 2 to 10. NWEA MAPS Assessment |
Standardized |
Create a class profile to adjust instruction and measure progress |
Grades 3-8, 10 NECAP |
Criterion Referenced |
Measure progress on state curriculum frameworks |
Grade 9. Placement Tests |
Criterion Referenced |
Appropriate placement in math, science and English |
Assessment of Student Achievement |
Student achievement is measured in three ways:
- Against criteria adopted by the New Hampshire Department of Education
in its curriculum frameworks for language arts, mathematics, science and social
studies
- Against the performance of national samples of students on standardized
tests designed for benchmarking and for determination of special educational
need
- Against individual criteria set by the school district for placement
of ninth graders in appropriate levels of math, science and English, and by each
teacher to measure progress within his/her classroom program.
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These three areas are covered through the following components:
- Participation in the NECAP in grades 3, 6 and 10. This assessment
is given at all schools in New Hampshire in the Fall. It is a criterion
referenced test that uses prompts for writing, requires the students
to demonstrate critical thinking skills rather than just show knowledge
of factual information, and purportedly measures the students’ achievement
in those areas deemed most important by New Hampshire’s professional
educators, business representatives, and other citizens who participated
in development of the state’s curriculum frameworks. (Area 1)
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Our computerized Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) combine the
benefit of technology with the integrity of our level tests. While
an individual student is taking a computerized adaptive test, the program
customizes the test to the student's achievement level. MAP is a system
that allows each student to receive a unique test, which is dynamically
developed for him or her as the test is being administered. MAP offers
unparalleled efficiency, flexibility, and most important, improved
measurement precision. It is a key component of any comprehensive assessment
program.
Teachers can use Measures of Academic Progress to: |
- Place new students in the appropriate course or instructional
setting
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- Focus instruction for new students Monitor growth in
student achievement over time
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- Determine student proficiency related to the district's
graduation standards
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- Screen students for Title I eligibility, special education
services, and gifted program
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In addition to improving assessment decisions, MAP can: |
- Improve the testing experience for students and teachers
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- Enable teachers to give tests whenever they're needed
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- Provide immediate feedback
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- Provide parents with better information about
their child's growth in achievement
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- Individual assessment of ability and achievement for students
who are referred because of academic deficiencies indicating a possible
disability. A variety of individual assessment instruments are used
for this purpose, including achievement tests, psychological assessments,
measures of intellectual ability, and specialized assessments for
physical limitations, emotional issues, speech language development,
and other potential areas of disability. These assessments are used
primarily as part of the special education referral process. (Area
2)
- Entrance tests given to ninth graders to facilitate placement
in appropriate course levels during their high school years. (Area
3)
- Extensive assessment within individual classrooms on subject matter
included in the district’s adopted curricula and teachers’ expansion
of those curricula. These are the traditional classroom tools that include
a wide range of activities including term papers, live presentations, quizzes,
chapter tests, and final examinations. The district, through the DEIP process,
has chosen to strengthen the effectiveness through the use of professional
development activities designed to give teachers more expertise in designing
and using the data obtained from their assessment activities. (Area 3)
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Results of the assessment, in all three areas, provide useful
information on two planes.
- The first is individual information regarding the progress of
students toward achievement of the district’s performance standards.
By using both criterion referenced and standardized assessments,
the district can track students’ progress both in terms of
curriculum standards and in comparison with students in other districts
nationwide.
- The second, and equally valuable, use for the assessment results is to
monitor curricular and instructional progress in the district.
Analysis of student performance on each test item can identify for individual
teachers and for the district as a whole, which parts of the curriculum are receiving
too little attention or are not being taught effectively. The assessment instruments
used are not equally strong on both of these planes. Criterion referenced tests
provide the best information regarding student progress through the curriculum
and toward fixed standards for graduation. Standardized assessment provides more
reliable information for benchmarking against other districts and students. Assessment
of Instructional Quality High standards for students and assessment of student
progress will have virtually no effect on student achievement unless quality
instruction and supporting services are available to every student. To that end,
the district has strengthened its staff evaluation procedures as part of the
educational improvement process. A major effort in this area culminated in adoption
by the Management Team of a procedural handbook entitled Indicators of Teacher
Performance: A tool for enhancing the evaluation process. This handbook
is an outgrowth of the teacher evaluation procedure contained in the district’s
master agreement with the Rochester Federation of Teachers. It describes the
district’s expectations for each item contained in the teacher contract,
and defines performance standards for each evaluative designation, from unsatisfactory
through commendable. Use of the performance indicators has improved consistency
of evaluation and has resulted in more accountability for teaching performance.
A second aspect of improved instructional performance that is directly related
to assessment is a professional development effort to prepare teachers to better
utilize the results of student assessments. These efforts are in the infancy,
so we are unable to determine their effectiveness at this time. |
| Assessment of Overall District Performance The
primary vehicle for assessing overall district performance has been the
DEIP process, which began in 1991 with adoption of the district’s
first strategic plan. The first strategic plan established goals and objectives
through the analysis of data from student assessment, community surveys,
financial records, school board minutes, and other historical data. In
a second round of strategic planning, culminating in a 1994 report on successes
and failures from the first round and new goals and objectives, the district
was able to measure its progress in several areas and adjust the plan for
new circumstances. The district’s focus broadened slightly to maintain
efforts in all of the areas identified in the first plan, but expand the
involvement of businesses and the community in the educational process
and to focus more on applied knowledge in the curriculum. A new goal of
making the district "more user friendly" was adopted. Community,
staff and student surveys have been the most effective means of assessing
progress toward the district’s goals and objectives. Under the current
iteration of this plan, these surveys will remain an important tool for
measuring overall performance |
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