INFORMATIONAL LETTER: 1
POLICY CODE: ILB
TO: Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, Special Education Directors, Curriculum Coordinators, Elementary and Middle School Principals, Guidance Directors
FROM: Susan A. Gendron, Commissioner
DATE: July 12, 2007
RE: MEA and PAAP Reports Release and Need for Verification
Key Points Covered In this Informational Letter:
- Delivery of Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) and Personalized Alternate Assessment Portfolio (PAAP) Reports
- District and School Data Review and Verification of Reports
- Separate Mailing of Additional Report Materials
- New Achievement Standards for MEA Writing at Grades 5 and 8
- New Achievement Standards for Alternate Assessment
Delivery of Reports
March 2007 MEA results for grades 3 through 8 will be delivered on a secure website. Information and security pass codes for accessing these reports online will be mailed from Measured Progress, the MEA contractor, to superintendents’ and principals’ offices this Friday, July 13, 2007. Please refer to the mailing for contact information if you need assistance. The following MEA reports will be accessible: school and district reports, class analysis reports (with accompanying CSV files), school, district and state summary pages, and an electronic version of parent letters.
New Features:
- Superintendents will have the ability to view and manipulate student data in CSV format by grade level for all the students in their school administrative units (SAUs). They will also be able to download reports for all schools in their SAU at one time.
- Principals will have a greatly enhanced software tool, allowing them to sort and filter class analysis data and create user accounts for teachers to review selected student reports. A user manual is available online as explained in the mailing from Measured Progress.
New this year, 2007 PAAP reports for grades 3-8, 10 and 11 will also be delivered on the secure website. The following PAAP reports will also be available: school summary reports and school analysis reports (rosters). Due to the nature of these reports, they are provided in PDF format only and are not interactive.
SAU and School Review and Verification of MEA and PAAP Reports Data
Schools will have the usual 10 business day review and verification period prior to the Department verification of the accuracy of MEA and PAAP results. It is extremely important that SAU and school staff members conduct this review and verification of data by July 27, 2007. All student-related data reflects information supplied by schools to the Department’s Maine Educational Data Management System (MEDMS) by March 26, 2007. Issues related to student-level data should be reported to AYP personnel, and other issues should be reported to MEA or PAAP personnel using the contact information at the end of this letter. Once the data have been verified, the Department will release MEA and PAAP results to the public. The required federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) determinations will then be completed and released to SAUs and the public prior to the beginning of the school year.
Separate Mailing of Additional Report Materials
On July 20, 2007, additional MEA and PAAP related materials will be shipped to superintendents for the SAUs and schools within the SAUs. Superintendents will be responsible for distributing envelopes containing MEA and PAAP information to schools. An MEA envelope for each school will contain: additional copies of information and security pass codes for accessing reports on the secure website; paper copies of parent letters; student labels; released item CDs, and CDs containing student responses to the writing prompt at each of grades 5 and 8. A PAAP envelope will be provided only for those schools that provided PAAPs to students and will contain paper copies of the Individual Student Reports.
New Achievement Standards for MEA Writing at grades 5 and 8
MEA performance standards in writing had been held at the same levels from 1999 through 2005. Due to changes in the assessment, new standards needed to be set. Standard setting, which is the process of determining threshold or cut scores on an assessment, were set this year using a process very similar to last year’s standard setting in reading, mathematics, and science and technology. Maine teachers gave input both at the time of testing (Teacher Judgment method) and as panel members during the standard setting procedure reviewing student work using the Body of Work method. The results of the standard setting panels were considered along with the results of the Teacher Judgment method. The results were reviewed by the Policy Advisory Committee and final cut scores were approved by the Commissioner. New achievement level definitions in writing have been created and writing scores are now on a different scale, so they should not be directly compared to previous years’ scores. MEA achievement level definitions can be viewed at: http://www.maine.gov/education/mea/index.htm.
New Achievement Standards for Alternate Assessment
Standard setting for PAAP reading and mathematics was conducted following the scoring of 2007 student portfolios. For the first time, alternate assessment cut scores were established for four different grade spans: 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, and high school. The cut scores were established through a modification of the process described above, with input from teachers through Teacher Judgment forms submitted along with the PAAPs and participation in standard setting panels. The results were reviewed at the Maine Department of Education and final cut scores were approved by the Commissioner. The achievement level descriptors that were the basis of the standard setting process may be viewed on the PAAP website (www.mecas.org/paap).
Please Note:
- March 3 -21, 2008 is the testing window for the next MEA administration.
- MEA and PAAP report interpretation workshops are being planned for the Fall. More information will follow.
To Do:
Contact the following people if there are issues with your data:
Rachelle Tome, AYP Coordinator, at rachelle.tome@maine.gov or 624-6705 for student-level issues
Susan Smith, MEA Coordinator, at susan.smith@maine.gov or 624-6775 for MEA issues
Linda Parkin, Alternate Assessment (PAAP) Coordinator, at linda.parkin@maine.gov or
624-6782 for PAAP issues
