As test administration continues, the Department would like to remind schools of the following:
The Department will be providing new early reporting files for grades 3–8 in the Published Reports section of PearsonAccess Next (PAN). The early reporting files will include raw score item-level results and reporting category results as follows:
These reports can be accessed by PAN users with the Superintendent/District Test Coordinator and Principal/School Test Coordinator roles. After the initial June 4 release, a new "Published Reports" add-on role can be assigned locally as needed to additional PAN users, such as teachers or curriculum coordinators, by editing existing user accounts.
Preliminary grade 10 ELA and mathematics results will be available in late June and posted in Dropboxes as in prior years.
Please note that early release data are embargoed, and results should be used for educational planning purposes only.
For more detailed information, see the April 24 "Office Hours" session, which is scheduled to be posted on the training page of the MCAS Resource Center during the first week of May.
Students taking the Grade 10 ELA or Mathematics field tests must be registered and assigned to PearsonAccess Next sessions on the live site under "Grade 10 Field Test Administration." Once students log into their tests using the testing tickets provided on the live site, they will receive grade 10 content.
The MCAS Service Center recently emailed the Principal's Administration Instructions and the Test Administrator's Instructions (TAI) to high schools, and the manuals are now available (click on the first dropdown on the page).
Paper copies are not being produced, and principals/designees will need to print copies of the manuals. Schools that are not participating in the question tryouts do not need to print out pages 26–32 of the TAI, since these pages contain the science scripts.
Schools that volunteered for the high school Biology and Introductory Physics question tryouts must complete the Student Registration/Personal Needs Profile (SR/PNP) process by Friday, May 4.
To assist schools in registering students for the tryouts, the Department placed a pre-populated file containing a list of all grades 9 and 10 students, reported as enrolled as of March 2018 SIMS, in the MCAS 2018 folder in DropBox Central. The file should be edited to remove students who will not participate in a tryout and to add the appropriate question tryout test code (BIOTR or PHYTR). Pre-populated accommodations for grade 9 students are based on 2017 grade 8 STE accommodations; accommodations for grade 10 students are based on applicable 2018 grade 10 math accommodations.
Please refer to the Guide to the Student Registration/Personal Needs Profile (SR/PNP) Process for the 2017-2018 MCAS Tests, posted on the MCAS Resource Center, for more information.
To help the Department evaluate the testing experience and determine how it can be improved, DESE will provide voluntary questionnaires to educators who were involved in test administration and high school students who participated in grade 10 field testing.
While it is important for schools to email or call for support during test administration when pressing matters arise, we encourage test administration teams to take notes during testing so that they will be prepared to complete the questionnaire for educators when it becomes available. The Department will provide a link to it in an upcoming Student Assessment Update, and the questionnaire will remain online from May 14 to June 15.
High schools administering the grade 10 field tests will receive links to the student questionnaires (one link for ELA, and one for Mathematics) via email when the questionnaires become available midweek. They must be completed by May 18 (one week after the field-test administration closes).
Schools are reminded that information in PearsonAccess Next (for CBT as well as for PBT administrations) should be updated throughout administration in the following situations:
Instructions for updating student data (for CBT and PBT) are provided on pages 58–59 of the Spring 2018 Principal's Administration Manual, Grades 3–8. Note that certain CBT accommodations can only be updated during the formal discrepancy period in August (i.e., TTS, screen reader, assistive technology).
The recording and slides from the April 4 "office hours" session are now available. The following topics were covered, and schools with questions on these topics are encouraged to view the slides and recording for information:
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