Commissioner's Newsletter
March 6, 2006
| High School Assessment Update | Survey About Personal Finance |
| Security for MAP Exams | "Top Ten" Lists |
| Reporting PD Hours | Update on MOSIS |
| Commentary | |
Dear School Administrator:
Here are several important items for your information and use.
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH HIGH SCHOOL ASSESSMENT?
It has become clear within the past few days that we need to address some key questions and emerging rumors about possible changes in our high school assessment practices. I need to bring you up-to-date on what has been happening and what could happen later this spring or summer.
Last year (spring 2005), the High School Task Force submitted its recommendations to the State Board of Education concerning minimum graduation requirements and other issues related to high school standards. The State Board took action on just one of the task force’s recommendations: raising the minimum requirements for graduation.
The task force also recommended that we consider replacing the high school MAP exams with a standardized, college-entry exam (such as the ACT or SAT). I asked a separate committee to continue meeting to study the implications of this idea. That committee has been meeting all winter and is about to wrap up its work.
In case you have not been tracking this issue, Illinois, Colorado and Michigan now require the ACT of all students, with the state paying the cost. Some other states, including Kansas, are considering this same approach. This idea has gained traction pretty quickly in Missouri – at least in some quarters and particularly among educators who believe too many students do not take the MAP seriously.
We plan a preliminary discussion about this issue at the March State Board of Education meeting. I think it is likely that the committee will recommend that we replace the high school MAP assessments with the ACT, but with some important qualifications or additions. For example, the ACT does not adequately cover our science standards. No Child Left Behind requires that we have a science assessment at the high school level no later than 2008. So, if we make any changes, we will have to keep the MAP science exam in place or find some other means of “augmenting” an existing national exam. I also expect that the committee will recommend a mandatory writing assessment as part of any new assessment plan.
In a nutshell, the plan that has been discussed calls for adopting the ACT as our state’s high school assessment for accountability purposes. The state would contract for this purpose. Virtually every student would be required to take the test as a junior, but nobody would be required to “pass” the test in order to graduate. Although the term “exit test” has been used loosely in the recent discussions about high school assessment, we are not advocating the use of any exam that students would be required to “pass” in order to graduate.
I realize that most people are accustomed to thinking of the ACT only as a college-entry exam that generates a simple composite score. However, if the ACT were to be adopted as the state’s assessment tool, schools would get much more data (scale scores, subtest scores, etc.) so that the exam would meet their diagnostic and instructional needs, as well as state and federal accountability demands. For accountability purposes, we would establish a “proficiency” level to use for year-to-year growth. We would probably use the ACT measure as we currently do on MSIP.
I want to make this clear: No decisions have been made on this topic. There is no question that such a change in our testing policies would mark a profound shift for Missouri. The State Board of Education understands this, and we recognize that the opinions on this topic may be sharply divided. We will soon announce the schedule for a series of regional meetings next month (April) where we will provide school district personnel with more information about these proposals and seek your input and ideas. I do not expect the State Board to formally consider the committee’s recommendations until April or May.
If you have questions about this matter, please contact Assistant Commissioner Stan Johnson at 573-751-4234.
SURVEY ABOUT ASSESSMENT FOR PERSONAL FINANCE
Superintendents recently received a brief survey that is intended to help us gauge the level of interest in using an online assessment tool in conjunction with the new “personal finance” course that is part of the revised high school graduation requirements. If you have not done so, please take a moment to review this survey and think about the potential value and utility of a state-developed, online assessment for your students and district.
We believe the availability and practicality of online assessment (as a basic tool) are only going to grow in the future. Therefore, it makes sense to explore the possibilities of online assessment as schools prepare to meet the demands of increased graduation requirements. Your opinions and suggestions on this topic are important to us.
SECURITY FOR THE NEW “MAP” EXAMS
As you know, Missouri students, teachers and administrators will soon participate in the administration of the much-expanded MAP testing program. With the introduction of grade-level assessments this year, far more students and teachers will be involved in MAP testing than ever before.
With more grades and more staff involved in mandatory testing, there will be more opportunities for security breaches. I urge you to talk about this issue with your principals, testing coordinators and all other personnel who are involved in test administration. School officials need to remind everybody of their responsibility for maintaining a test environment that is honest, secure and fair for all students.
Last year, several cases of irregularities in MAP testing (mostly minor) were reported to us. We were required to disclose those reports, and they generated quite a lot of publicity. Principals and test coordinators need to be more aggressive this spring to make sure that all personnel observe the established guidelines for handling test materials and other security protocols.
NEW “TOP TEN” LISTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE
We have recently compiled and posted the new “Top Ten Lists,” which are based on 2005 MAP results. As in the past, two sets of lists recognize the “Highest-Performing” and the “Most-Improved” schools. An alphabetical list at the end of each report will help you locate the names of schools and districts that earned spots on one or more of the Top Ten lists. We encourage you to use these lists as much as you can to generate positive publicity in your community and to recognize students and teachers for their accomplishments.
We have not made a final decision, but this is likely to be the last time we prepare the Top Ten lists. Next year, when we have all the data from the new grade-level tests, there could be so many Top Ten lists that people would just be dazed by all the numbers. We would like to find a meaningful way to recognize schools that achieve well and make outstanding progress on the MAP exams. If you have thoughts about this, please let us know.
Congratulations to all who earned a place on one or more of the latest lists!
IMPORTANT REMINDER ABOUT REPORTING “PD” HOURS
Last October, staff from the Educator Certification Section held workshops to address the online reporting of professional development hours for all educators. This reporting was required by a statutory change in 2003. The law now requires all educators to complete annual professional development hours in order to maintain an “active” license. The amount of required hours depends on the individual’s classification. This information will become very important in two years when licenses will become inactive for personnel who have not completed the required hours.
About half of all school districts have reported the hours for their certificated staff, and we are contacting other districts to remind them of this requirement. If you have not yet reported this professional development information – which is not a part of Core Data – please contact Educator Certification at 573-751-0051 or 573-751-3847.
I am happy to announce that all school districts have been given state-assigned, random ID numbers for all of their students this year through the Missouri Student Information System (MOSIS). In addition, nearly 450 school districts are taking part in the “pre-code” component of MOSIS, which allows them to use the student ID numbers to link their student data to the MAP answer sheets. More than 500,000 student IDs will be used for pre-coding. This should speed test processing and enhance accuracy a great deal.
Many school district personnel have worked hard this year to become part of the MOSIS, and several DESE staff members have worked very hard to get this system off the ground. We appreciate your continued support and cooperation.
“HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES REPORT” NOW ONLINE
Many school officials are already aware of this fact, but a “new” report about the performance of graduates of Missouri public high schools is now available on the DESE Web site. This information includes data that have been collected and published for several years by the Missouri Department of Higher Education (DHE) but which have not been widely distributed. There has been a lot of interest in these data among Missouri high school personnel, so our staff worked with the DHE to make these statistical reports available on our Web site.
These reports provide information about the number and percent of public school graduates enrolling in higher education and how those students perform at the postsecondary level (continuing enrollment, percentage requiring remedial courses, completion of degrees, etc.).
The link to these reports is located on the School Data and Statistics index page for your school district. Scroll down the page to the box titled “Educational Performance Data.” In this box is the link to “High School Grads Performance Report (DHE).” The online report includes a more-detailed explanation of how the DHE collects and compiles these data from public colleges and universities (two- and four-year) in our state.
INFORMATION ABOUT SCHOOLS IN NEW ORLEANS
Thousands of students were displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region last fall by hurricanes. About 1,000 of those kids continue to be served by Missouri public schools. The rebuilding is beginning, but it will be a slow process. The Louisiana Department of Education is serving as a main point-of-contact for students and families who need current information about the rebuilding and re-opening of schools in News Orleans. Anyone who is planning to return to New Orleans and needs reliable information about the school system there may call the Louisiana Department of Education at 1-877-453-2721. Thanks to all of you for helping provide an education for these students.
STARTING NOW: CHANGES IN THE “MAILBAG”
Superintendents and some other leaders in Missouri’s public education community receive a regular communication from the Department known as the “Mailbag.” It is a consolidated mailing (usually weekly) in which we include any materials that need to be distributed to all school districts. We instituted the Mailbag nine years ago to reduce the number of separate mailings that school officials receive from this agency and to reduce our postage costs.
We are now preparing to transform the Mailbag into a Web-based tool. I want to alert you and your colleagues to this pending change in procedure. We expect it to be a gradual process over the next few months. We certainly will not eliminate the use of the mail, but we should be able to provide many routine items for you and your staff via the Web.
As a first step, we will stop enclosing some items in the Mailbag. Instead, the Mailbag cover sheet will give you the information you need about how to access an item. Look at your Mailbag material for this week (sent March 1), and you will see our first effort to notify you about a new Web-posted document.
If you have questions or suggestions about this transition, please contact Jim Morris, director of public information.
NEW DIRECTOR FOR SCHOOL FINANCE SECTION
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Roger Dorson is DESE’s new director of the School Finance Section, effective July 1. Roger is currently superintendent of the Salisbury School District. He is a highly experienced and respected school leader. We look forward to welcoming him as a member of the Department’s staff.
Have you read The World Is Flat, the recent bestseller by Thomas L. Friedman? If not, I encourage you to do so. It made me stop and think. The world really is moving and changing faster than we can imagine. When American companies find it cheaper and easier to hire thousands of skilled, ambitious and hard-working young people in India to answer their customer-service phones, something big is happening. Something we cannot ignore.
India, China and other countries are not just winning our low-skilled jobs. Increasingly, they are competing with us and other nations in the high-skill, high-innovation areas where we have traditionally been the leader. They will not be content to “beat us to the bottom” with low-cost manufacturing. They intend to “beat us to the top,” Friedman says, through better education, more innovation, cutting-edge design, and more applied science, math and engineering.
Many business and political leaders are talking about the danger of the United States slipping behind in the global race for economic leadership and security. We are going to face growing demands to “step up” and do more to promote better teaching and learning in what some are calling the “STEM” subjects: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
I know that some will dismiss this current discussion as just the latest swing of the pendulum. I don’t think that is the case. The challenge for us is real. You may or may not like him or agree with him, but when Bill Gates says American high schools are “obsolete,” we cannot ignore it.
I think this debate is just getting started. We must be ready.
Sincerely,
D. Kent King