Mineola Schools Seek Answers in Other Test Scores

Following the , Mineola Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler made a presentation to the examining the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) scores at the recent August retreat at the .

The primary function of the NWEA exam is to inform teachers and parents whether a student has grown over the course of the year.

“Because they’re a national test (and) they’re more reliable than a state test to say how kids are doing nationally,” the superintendent said.

Students’ current ESL score, special ed. score, last year’s state exam score, raw scores, current reading level and reading RIT score were examined to see if the student met their growth target. A student’s RIT score is determined by how they measure on the NWEA test. The NWEA then assigns on a national level a growth target based on the first test a child takes that year and measures achievement when the student takes a second exam in the spring.

There are four levels of achievement, with four being the highest and one being the lowest.

For example, a student with a reading RIT of 216 – one of the highest examined for a fourth grader  – “and according to the state, this child is a Level 2 and was a Level 2 the year before,” Dr. Nagler said. Level 2 is considered “not proficient.”

The superintendent then pointed to another Level 2 student in special ed who achieved Level 3 this year, but according to NWEA, did not meet growth target and has a low RIT score. “This child in particular had no growth. I don’t know how they scored a Level 3,” Dr. Nagler said. “These are anomalies but the highlight is it goes from a Level 4 to a Level 2.”

New York is in the midst of two transitions in terms of curriculum and assessment. The primary purpose of the Federal Race to the Top funding was to create a national test since more than half of the states having adopted a “core curriculum.” New York and Florida were selected to receive the Federal moneys and are charged with making a national assessment.

“Whatever assessment they come up with it is the intention to make that for the whole country,” Dr. Nagler said.

However, the final form of the test is unknown. While the assessment could similarly follow NWEA, it could just as easily mimic the PISA exam, a problem solving test which is taken all over the world and on which the U.S. has not fared well.

“The problem with NWEA is it’s not a test of mastery,” Dr. Nagler said. “They don’t want that; they want to have a mastery, they want to be able to say ‘did you understand this concept fully?’, ‘do you understand the content fully?’ so they’re trying to create a growth model in a content base, which is a whole different test.”

The dilemma for the district is how it should structure for the next 5 years as the transition occurs, if it should prepare for a different assessment exam which may not arrive or take a different form.

“If we believe that we’re preparing kids for what the future’s going to bring but they’re not testing that,” the superintendent said. “If we want to start broadening in anticipation of the new assessment, we’re going to take lumps on the current assessment. If we want to try to do it simultaneous, you could do that. I could be wrong, they may not base it on PISA... so you somehow have to do it simultaneous.”

The assessment shift would also require a change in how children learn in order to prepare for 21st century problem solving skills.

“We educate everybody and other countries don’t. We take content: you learn a trade, you take a test for trade, you master a trade. This test is ‘here’s a problem’,” Dr. Nagler said. “To solve the problem you have to know trade, you have to know a bunch of other stuff but basically your brain is functioning a different way to solve the problem. You’re applying the knowledge you know to solve the problem. We don’t test like that. Now you have to think about engaging kids in the content. What we’re talking about, what I was specifically speaking about is changing the traditional method of structure of schools.”

For the 2011-12 school year, the district has already undertaken a vast reconfiguration, moving the fifth and eighth grades into the and , respectively. In the classroom, the reconfiguration has also involved coursework, stopping pullouts, putting electives in the middle of the day and concentrating on the core of English, social studies, math and science. Dr. Nagler also believed that the shift to a 5-6-7 middle school would yield better results because it was an elementary period-by-period model.

The district has also experienced an uptick in students taking advanced placement (AP) exams, with the number of those enrolled in AP courses increasing every year for the past 5 years. Mineola offers “open enrollment” for AP courses, meaning there is no prerequisite and students who wouldn’t necessarily perform well can enroll and challenge themselves. Surprisingly, the number of students achieving a grade of 3 – the grade required to earn college credit – has also increased. AP exams are graded on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest).

“If this is going up, we’re challenging more kids and more kids are answering the challenge,” Dr. Nagler said.