Angie Smith, one of the parents on the Ann Arbor Schools Assessment Advisory Committee, shared this powerpoint presentation with the committee this week, and has given me permission to share it with the rest of the world.
One more thing: in the "settings" on Google Slides (the little wheel option on the right side of the black bar at the bottomo), you can choose to look at the speaker notes, and I think you will find them helpful.
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In Dr. Swift's most recent blog about the M-Step (4/2/15) she asks AAPS families not to Opt Out their children for the M-Step. She did not address specific ramifications if AAPS has high opt out rates - are there any specifics yet? Also, she does not clarify the value the district will get from administering this test. It sounds like they are just going to see if this "kind" of test will be a type they look for in the future? So then I wonder if this test and test prep is really just practice for a future test?
ReplyDeleteI've opted my daughter out of the M-Step and have not yet heard back from the school.
If the district (or a school) has below a 95% participation rate, that will be reflected in the color coded "rankings" that the state is using now to compare schools.
DeleteFor this year, where the M-STEP is experimental, it will not be used to assess teacher or student achievement.
There is the threat of other ramifications down the road (specifically, penalizing funding of Title I schools) but at this point not a single district in the country has been penalized financially for high opt out rates, and some districts on the east coast (particularly in New York and New Jersey) are seeing huge opt out rates.
Thank you, Ruth. This is what I thought I understood to be true.
DeleteI received the letter yesterday from Forsythe Administrators letting me know that there is not an "opt out" option for this test. They said there would not be alternative activities available so I understood this to mean that if I follow through with "opt out" then I will need to keep my child home from school. They encouraged me to write letters and advocate at a higher level and asked me to reconsider my child's participation so that ranking and funding were not adversely affected.
So now I am looking at next steps. Are other "opt out" families running into similar barriers and just keeping kids home?
So where or to whom do we write to, to opt out? My biggest issue is what will kids be doing that don't take the test? Sent to the library to wait it out? The best I can figure out by talking to my kids' teachers is that the MSTEP will take minimally 7 hours each week for 2 weeks. Basically all teaching will stop before Labor Day. I am so not happy and so not happy with any of the responses or lack of responses to the question of parents asking to opt out their children.
ReplyDeleteSorry! Memorial Day, not Labor Day!
ReplyDeleteAlso, was anyone aware or was it common knowledge that last year AAPS piloted the Smarter Balanced Assessment (not sure if that is the name?) at certain schools? I was told that the district got $10 per head for each kid that took the test. My kids at Lawton spent hours doing this. Hours being sold out by our district.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it was "common" knowledge but it was known by at least some people--it was part of a larger technology grant and I wrote about it here: http://a2schoolsmuse.blogspot.com/2014/04/smarter-balance-comes-to-ann-arbor.html#.VSKIffzF_bl
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