MDE Assessment Update, Sept. 16, 2009

[Brian Norman]

A weekly update from the Division of Research and Assessment September 16, 2009
In this issue… Important Dates
Distributing Individual Student Reports to Parents
Mathematics MCA-III Field Test
Update on the Graduation Data List from Educator Portal
Setting Up Sessions for GRAD Retests
Odds ‘n’ Ends
Tech Updates: Important Reminders
Distribute ISRs to parents by fall parent conferences

9/15: Submit dates your schools plan to administer the Mathematics Field Test (if applicable)

9/16: Districts can start setting up test sessions for the October GRAD retests.

10/14: MARSS updates due at MDE (10/9 for RMICs)

Distributing Individual Student Reports (ISRs) to Parents
As many of you heard at the Pretest Workshops last January, MDE requires districts to distribute the ISRs from the spring testing to parents no later than the fall parent conferences. DACs will be asked in the enrollment window in PearsonAccess for 2010 to indicate when the ISRs for 2009 were distributed for each grade.
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Mathematics MCA-III Field Test
If your school was selected to participate in the Mathematics MCA-III Field Test, this is a reminder that the deadline for telling us when each of your selected schools will be taking the test was yesterday. For those of you who weren’t able to make the September 15 deadline, please send us you test dates as soon as possible by email or fax.

EMAIL: Reply to the email with the week(s) of administration identified by writing/typing the week(s) of test administration after each school

FAX: Print out the page(s) of the email that include your participating school(s) and write/type the week(s) of test administration after each school. Fax to “Fall 2009 Field Test” at 651-582-8874.

One more reminder: As we mentioned two weeks ago, on October 14 we’ll be pulling MARSS data to generate the lists of students who will be testing. The cleaner your MARSS data is on that date, the cleaner the lists of students will be.

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Update on the Graduation Data List from Educator Portal
As many DACs and some counselors know, when they go to the Test Results Download tab of the Educator Portal and select “GRAD” as the test group, the Graduation Data List in Excel format appears at the bottom of the page. There is one list for each grade nine through 12. Each list has the results for every graduation-related test taken by students in the grade.

From the time these lists were first created last spring, the grades were appropriate for the 2008-09 school year. Starting next Monday, the grades will be appropriate for the 2009-10 school year if your MARSS coordinator has submitted a 2010 MARSS file. If the MARSS data has not been submitted for 2009-10, no information will appear until the MARSS submission has been completed. If you need current graduation test information and suspect that your district’s MARSS data will not be updated until after next Monday (it’s not due until the middle of October), you might want to grab a Graduation Data List now.

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Setting Up Sessions for GRAD Retests
Every month from the first Tuesday to the Wednesday of the following week districts are able to administer the GRAD retests to eligible students that have been loaded in PearsonAccess. Districts choose the months when they will administer the retests. The full GRAD retest schedule is available in pp. 2-3 of the GRAD Implementation Guide and Administration Manual.

Tomorrow, districts can begin to set up test sessions for students who are eligible to take the October GRAD retests.
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Odds ‘n’ Ends
• GRAD Test of Written Composition: Retests for this writing test and any BST retests requested by students are given in early November according to the 2009-2010 BST Retest Schedule.
• Assessment Conference Presentations Unavailable After Sep 30: The PowerPoint files from our August Assessment Conference are available at PearsonAccess>Support>Resources>Training through the end of September.
• Science Classroom Assessment link: The new hidden link to the Science Classroom Assessments is: http://etest.pearson.com/customers/Minnesota/mca2sciclassassessment.... These classroom assessments are not secure in the way statewide tests are secure, but the link to them should not be generally released since teachers use these assessments as formative or summative assessments.
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Tech Updates
Information related to the technical side of online testing. Please share with your district technology coordinator.

Important Reminders
• TestNav 6.9: On December 19th Minnesota will transition to TestNav 6.9. All student workstations, both PCs and Macs, will need to be upgraded to TestNav 6.9 for online testing starting with the January 2010 GRAD retests.
• IP addresses for online testing were changed the weekend of August 28. Pearson recommends using URLs when configuring networks to allow internet access to Pearson servers. However, if your network only accepts IP addresses, please contact Pearson Support for assistance.
For additional information, see the Pearson memos included in the Summary of Online Testing Updates on our Online Testing Web page.

For assistance, contact Pearson Support at 888-817-8659 or [e-mail].
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Research and Assessment
Minnesota Department of Education
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