CPS ASSESSMENTS: An Overview

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Educational assessments evaluate or measure the knowledge and skills of individual students, whole classrooms, schools, and/or education systems.  A teacher in any given classroom may design and administer his or her own in-class assessments to evaluate student learning, as well as administer assessments required by external agencies, including standardized tests. 

Standardized tests are assessments administered and scored in a consistent manner, so that results can be compared between test takers. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has three testing windows and schools may administer the assessment(s) any time during those windows:  

1. Beginning-of-the-year (BOY) assessments aim to establish a baseline score
2. Middle-of-the-year (MOY) assessments (formative) measure growth and help teachers to identify areas for additional instruction
3. End-of-year (EOY) (summative) assessments are typically used for student promotion or acceptance into selective enrollment programs, teacher/principal evaluations, and school accountability. 

NWEA Measures of Academic Progress (MAP)
The Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test is currently the 'high stakes' test used in CPS. CPS requires that all students grade 2-8 take the end-of-year (EOY) MAP and the results from this administration, for individual students, are used for promotion to the next grade level in grades 3, 6, and 8, and for applications to selective enrollment programs in grades 5 and 7.  School-wide data is used in our school rating and principal evaluation. Teachers may also use the results from the early and mid-year administrations to guide instruction at the classroom level or provide additional learning support for individual students.  

NWEA MAP Resources
Interpreting the RIT Score and Percentiles:

• http://cps.edu/SchoolData/Documents/NWEA_ParentToolkit_ENG.pdf
• http://schools.cms.k12.nc.us/eastoverES/Documents/ACPS-MAP%20Parent%20Brochure.pdf

Practice

• http://www.sowashco.k12.mn.us/ro/pages/studentlinks/map/reading.htm
• http://www.sowashco.k12.mn.us/ro/pages/studentlinks/map/
• http://quizlet.com/subject/vocabulary-nwea-rit/
• http://www.vocabulary.com/ ​​

K-2 Assessments

3-8 Assessments

​​General Assessment Topics
​CPS Assessments: 

• http://cps.edu/SchoolData/Pages/Assessment.aspx

ISBE Assessments:  

• http://www.isbe.net/assessment/

Federal legislation: 

• http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml
• http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html

Common Core: 

• http://www.corestandards.org/

Test Anxiety: 

• http://kidshealth.org/teen/school_jobs/school/test_anxiety.html
• http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Helping_Cope_Test/

Opting-out:  

• http://morethanascorechicago.org/