District Assessment

[Concerned Mom]

Does anyone know about what a district assessment measures? My son took a district assessment for Math, Science, and Social Studies at his public school in 3rd grade. Parents aren't told when the assessments are given and are not informed what the results are for their student. You have to ask if you happen to find out somehow. My son missed the honor roll by 3 points in Reading the first quarter then he made the honor roll in second quarter. He continues to earn As and Bs in his subject. Almost the entire third grade class made the honor last quarter. What I find strange is he only responded to 50% of the questions correctly on his Math and Social Studies district assessment. This is a new school that has been open for 3 years and many of the teachers do not have alot of experience, so I am wondering if he is benefiting from his education at all at this school.

When he took the Iowa Basic Skills Test at the beginning of the school year in 3rd grade his scores looked really good. So I don't understand what is going on here. Shouldn't the teacher offer some sort of tutoring. I am in contact with her to find out what is going on, but wanted some feedback from you all, who may have more knowledge about this. He has to take a Math TAKS in April, so I don't understand why I wasn't told about his assessment scores.

[Heigh Ho]

Was it Acuity? It measures acheivement vs. grade level objectives. The teachers theoretically use the data to adjust their lesson planning.
Parents aren't given any results of district assessments here and the children don't use the software to improve. http://acuityforschool.com/overview/features_benefits/parents.shtml


If the scores are good why would you want tutoring? Basically, here, the child is on his own to go from 'B' to 'A...there is no tutoring to get a child from proficient to mastery. Tutoring through the district is only offered to nonacheivers and only long enough to move them to proficient. Good question to ask the principal though.

[Renee in FL]

They do district assessments all the time here - it's to make sure they are on target to pass the FCATs at the end of the year.

[BabyBre]

"District assessment" is really vague. My guess is that it's an assessment your district may write themselves in order to ensure each student/classroom is on target at certain points in the year. Our district writes its own assessments for EVERY unit in most subjects, so our kids take some district assessment nearly every week, sometimes 2 or 3.

The bottom line is that if you want all the nitty gritty details on your son's work in school, you should be given them. If your teacher refuses, go to the principal, and so on. Here in Washington state, only the granddaddy of all assessments - our state test, the WASL - is kept super top secret, but even that you can view in a windowless room surrounded by armed guards once you submit to a patdown and body cavity check. ;)

Be sure to assert yourself and get to the bottom of it. No one else will. Good luck!

[Caroline]

The district assessment may be based on what they will learn all year. If he got half right, he would be right on target. The point of these would be to make sure the teacher is pacing the material correctly. The reason parents aren't informed necessarily is that the test is not about their kid. It is about the school and the teacher and that is how scores are reported.

Just a guess....

[Concerned Mom]

Was it Acuity? It measures acheivement vs. grade level objectives. The teachers theoretically use the data to adjust their lesson planning.
Parents aren't given any results of district assessments here and the children don't use the software to improve. http://acuityforschool.com/overview/features_benefits/parents.shtml


If the scores are good why would you want tutoring? Basically, here, the child is on his own to go from 'B' to 'A...there is no tutoring to get a child from proficient to mastery. Tutoring through the district is only offered to nonacheivers and only long enough to move them to proficient. Good question to ask the principal though.

I don't know the answer to your question. The teacher stated that she normally teaches one or two concepts at a time and because he was exposed to 8 different math concepts on this assessment this is something he wasn't use to. This is not true because for two years at a private school they were using Everyday Math. I have noticed at this particular school the students are behind on what the teacher is teaching. They just started fractions when other campuses are finishing up with that. I believe he wasn't fully prepared to take this assessment because she didn't cover all the concepts he needed to know. Of course she will not tell me this. We are moving out of the district next year, so I am trying to keep up with what they are doing in another district. It seems depending on where you go, each public school is district. How they do things depends on the income of the community and parent response.

[Concerned Mom]

I just wanted to add that his Writing/Social Studies teacher told me he wasn't taught everything he needed to know to do well on the assessments.