October 2019

Vision for Assessment

Assessment is an embedded component of an equitable instructional cycle, with multiple purposes for educators, students, parents, policy makers, and community members, all with the goal of supporting student growth for lifelong learning.

Data Review and Verification

Thank you for your continued patience while Maine DOE assessment team members have been working hard to ensure the accuracy of the summative assessment data provided by Maine’ s assessment vendors Cognia, MSAA, WIDA and College Board. The team completed all validations and these data are available for district review and validation as of Monday September 30, 2019. District and school leaders will have until close of business Monday October 14, 2019 to review the demographic and assessment data and inform the team of any errors. Please use the Error reporting form for any errors related to demographics. To access school and district data, please log into the MAARS Confidential website and enter your credentials.

MAARS User Login Credentials

The release of 2019 Maine Educational Assessment Data provides access to the confidential portal within MAARS. The following MAARS user accounts and log in credentials remain unchanged from 2019:

• MAARS Administrator/District Assessment Coordinator (DAC) – ‘districtadmin’
• District User – ‘districtuser’
• School User – ‘schooluser’
• Roster user – ‘rosteruser’

FocalPoint annually deletes the student rosters associated with roster user accounts. These student rosters must be re-established for educators to access the student data within their classes. It is the DAC responsibility to confirm all users below the “districtadmin” level. Please follow the instructions in the MAARS User Management Guide for adding, deleting and editing users and complete any edits to District users, School users, and/or Roster users prior to the November MAARS workshops.

1% Waiver information

On September 6 2019, districts with participation in the alternate assessment were provided pre-populated data from the 2017, 2018 and 2019 spring assessment administration within Action Plans documents. A webinar supporting districts review of NEO to verify alternate assessment student reports and identification of alternate assessment participation in Synergy was provided on September 18th. This webinar also provided information regarding accessing MAARS to examine individual student achievement levels to better understand which students may be able to participate in the general assessment. The team will be recalculating the identified students counts for alternate assessment percentages for all districts the week of September 30th.

A webinar to assist districts with Action Plan completion will be conducted on October 16th. All required Action Plans must be submitted to the Department no later than November 1st.

Maine is currently hovering at a statewide alternate assessment participation rate of 1.0%. We’re hopeful the final statewide alternate assessment participation rate will remain at this level upon conclusion of 2018-2019 data validation.

Essay assessment component paused for 2020 administration

The eMPowerME essay component, developed in partnership with Cognia (formerly known as Measured Progress), involved field testing, with full implementation in Spring 2018. Unfortunately, a surprising number of students received a “no score” designation for their essay, raising significant concerns around the quality of the assessment instrument and scoring. We became increasingly concerned when we received word that for the Spring 2019 assessment, the number of “no score” essays dramatically increased.

The Department has determined that developing an essay assessment that meets the needs of students and the State, is in the best interest of our students. Recognizing the high preponderance of non-scorable essays, the Maine DOE has decided to pause the administration of an essay component during the 2019-2020 school year, in order to review factors contributing to these results. The Department of Education plans to refine an essay portion of the assessment, with the assistance of Maine educators. The complete notice is located in the DOE Newsroom. A more detailed explanation was provided to all Superintendents via email prior to the release of the public notice on September 19, 2019.

NAEP 2019 Mathematics and Reading Results Release

The National Assessment Governing Board and National Center for Education Statistics' will present the results of the 2019 Nation’s Report Card on Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 1:30pm EST. For more information or to register for the livestream of the event go to the National Assessment Governing Board website

PIRLS/PISA pilot studies

Maine will participate in the Field Studies for Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) during the spring of 2020.

More information about these studies will appear in future Assessment Team Newsletters and on the Assessment Team Website.

Initial Notification to Districts and Schools

1. PIRLS: month of November
2. PISA: November into December

Assessment Windows

1. PIRLS: March 1 – April 15, 2020
2. PISA:  March 16 – April 24, 2020

Web updates

To keep administrators up to date on the new assessment team content for the 2019-20 administration, we will be including a brief list of updated forms, modules, trainings, and manuals in these monthly updates for your convenience. Here are the most recent updates to the assessment team pages:

1. WIDA ACCESS calendar of events update
2. WIDA Paper Student request form
3. Maine Alternate Participation Guidelines (posted on WIDA, PAAP, and MSAA pages)
4. 18-19 Science Released items
5. WIDA Online Administration checklist

Professional Development & Training

As a result of feedback from school and district staff and to support educators in their schedule planning, the assessment team will be providing in each monthly update, a schedule of upcoming professional development. Registration links will be made available here as well as the Professional Development calendar.

 

Dates	Delivery Method	Training	Location
November 19, 2019	In-person	MAARS Confidential Reporting Portal	Portland
November 20, 2019	In-person	MAARS Confidential Reporting Portal	Bangor/Orono
February 12, 2020	In-person	eMPowerME & SAT Test Administration	Black Bear Inn, Orono
February 13, 2020	In-Person	eMPowerME & SAT Test Administration	Abramson Center, USM, Portland