River Forest Public Schools - District 90

District 90 uses a variety of measures to chart students' educational progress during their years with us. We use these tests to determine individual student achievement and instructional needs, curriculum and instruction effectiveness, and how school performance compares to District learning objectives and statewide norms.

Keep in mind that no single test can give a full accounting of a child's knowledge and skills. Each test that we use provides one part of the whole picture. Together, the tests may offer patterns and insights to a child's profile and aid our efforts in guiding progress.
 

District 90 Assessment Schedule :

AIMSweb

This web-based system screens and monitors progress. It can be used with any curriculum, and provides a framework for Response to Intervention (RtI) and multi-tiered instruction. For more information, see our fact sheet.

Rigby Benchmarking Kit

This is a running record that complements our AIMSweb assessment and is administered one-to-one to determine a child’s reading accuracy, comprehension, and fluency when dealing with unfamiliar text.

MAP: Measures of Academic Progress

Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) are state-aligned tests that assess reading and math skills, accurately reflect the instructional level of each student, and measure growth over time. These assessments, which students take on a computer, are unique in that they adapt to each student’s ability during the test, accurately measuring what a child knows and needs to learn. In addition, MAP tests measure academic growth over time, independent of grade level or age. Most important, the results have practical application to teaching and learning. MAP test results, which are available for staff use within 48 hours, provide us with timely information that guides instructional planning and school improvement.

Educators use MAP tests to do the following:

• Identify the skills and concepts individual students have learned.
• Diagnose instructional needs of individual students.
• Monitor academic growth over time.
• Make data-driven decisions at the classroom, school, and district levels.

Scores depend on two things: how many questions are answered correctly and the difficulty of each question.

The Parent Report
The RIT Score
First, the report gives you a RIT score for your child in each subject area and is a measure that indicates a student’s instructional level. As students take MAP tests over a period of time, the RIT scores will also be a measure of academic growth. Scores are reported with an associated confidence band, or standard error of measure.

The Percentile Score
The second score in the parent report is the percentile rank. This tells you how your child is doing compared to other students in the same grade. For example, if your 7th grader has a percentile score of 81 in math, that means your child scored better than 81 percent of all U.S. 7th graders who have taken MAP tests.

Lexile
A Lexile is a unit for measuring text difficulty and reader comprehension. Your child’s Lexile range is located in the reading section of his or her report. A Lexile text measure is a value assigned to a book, based on the difficulty level of the vocabulary and sentence length. A Lexile does not take into account whether the content of a book would be appropriate for your child, so a Lexile should not be the only factor in selecting books. However, a Lexile range can be useful in personalizing reading selections for children. As you help your child chose books for independent reading, it is recommended you choose books within the lower 100 points of your child’s Lexile range. For more information about Lexiles, go to www.lexile.com.

Growth Information
The report shows your child’s progress in each subject area, and over the years you should see your child’s test scores improve to show progress or growth. Each student’s subsequent score from the same time of year (fall to fall or spring to spring) should be higher than the previous one. In general, most students show little growth or even slip slightly between the previous spring and fall testing, and very high-performing students tend to show somewhat less growth in scores than lower-performing students. You can compare your child’s score to that of the district average as well as to an established standard for the grade. However, the real value of the growth information is in tracking the progress of each individual student.

Goal Performance
Each subject area is broken down into goal areas of performance. This information helps teachers identify specific areas of strength and weakness for the student and adjust lesson design and delivery. The student’s performance in each goal area, based on the 2008 national norms, is described by one of the following:

• Low: The student’s performance is below the 21st percentile
• LoAvg: The student’s performance is between the 21st and 40th percentiles
• Avg: The student’s performance is between the 41st and 60th percentiles
• Hi Avg: The student’s performance is between the 61st and 80th percentiles
• High: The student’s performance is greater than the 80th percentile

Resource: Northwest Evaluation Association (www.nwea.org).

ISATs: The Illinois Standards Achievement Test

The Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) measures individual student achievement relative to the Illinois Learning Standards. The results give parents and teachers one measure of student learning and school performance. ISATs, which are required by law, are used to determine student knowledge at a set point in time. All students in the state take the same test, with the same questions, and results are available five to 11 months after the exam.

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has made changes in performance level expectations for the ISAT, sometimes called "cut scores." The changes raise the bar on performance expectations to align them with the more rigorous standards associated with the Common Core State Standards being implemented by schools statewide. For more information, refer to the ISBE website, or download the letter to District 90 parents explaining the change.

Click here to download the adjusted 2012 ISAT cut-score figures for District 90.

Reading Assessment
The reading assessment covers 51 items in three testing sessions. During the first session, students answer 30 multiple-choice items. Sessions two and three contain two longer passages, with 10 multiple-choice items in each; one passage in each of these sessions requires an extended response. Reading categories tested include vocabulary development, reading strategies, reading comprehension, literary elements and techniques, and variety of literary works.

Math Assessment
The math assessment covers three testing sessions. Session one covers 40 multiple-choice items, session two covers 30 multiple choice items and three short-response items, and session three covers two extended-response items. Math categories tested include number sense, measurement, algebra, geometry, data analysis, statistics, and probability.

Science Assessment

Two 45-minute sessions cover a total of 80 multiple-choice items. All science categories are assessed equally. Science categories tested include science inquiry, technological design, life science, environmental science, chemistry, force and motion, earth science, astronomy, safety, ethics, history of science, and technology in science. 

Resource: Illinois State Board of Education (www.isbe.state.il.us/assessment/isat.htm)

CogAT: Cognitive Abilities Test

The CogAT is the Cognitive Abilities Test, a multiple-choice test that measures both general and specific cognitive abilities. The reasoning abilities measured by the test show the cognitive process and strategies that help a student learn new tasks or solve problems. CogAT is not a measure of achievement but rather a measure of reasoning ability in specific aptitude areas. This test measures developed abilities, not innate abilities. Reasoning abilities have substantial correlations with learning and problem solving, both in and out of school.

Your child’s score report provides a student ability profile. Go to www.riverpubl.com/products/gropu/cogat6/anotetoparents.jsp and input your child’s score profile. You will then see a brief description of his or her learned reasoning abilities.

Why Use CogAT for Our Advanced Programs?
The high ceiling on CogAT, its ability to make reliable discriminations among the top 10 percent of scores in all age groups, and its broad sampling of cognitive skills make this a great assessment to use for all students, including those in our advanced programs.

What Does CogAT Measure?
CogAT measures learned reasoning and problem-solving skills in three different areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal.

The verbal section focuses on reasoning skills, flexibility, and fluency and includes a test on oral vocabulary and verbal reasoning.

The quantitative section focuses on the child’s understanding of basic quantitative concepts and relationships that are essential for learning mathematics. It includes tests on relational concepts and quantitative concepts.

The non-verbal section uses geometric shapes and figures and helps us see how students look for shapes and patterns. It includes tests on figure classification and matrices.

A separate score is reported for each of these three areas. In addition, a composite, or total, abstract reasoning score is reported.

CogAT Terms

• Universal Scale Score (USS): Provides a continuous growth scale of cognitive development from kindergarten through grade 12.
• Standard Age Score (SAS): These scores are developed for the purpose of comparing the rate and level of cognitive development of an individual to other students in the same age group.
• Percentile Rank (PR): The percentage of scores in a specified distribution that fall at or below the point of a given score. Percentile Ranks range in value from 1 to 99, and indicate the status or relative standing of an individual within a specified group (e.g., norms group), by indicating the percent of individuals in that group who obtained lower scores. Note, however, an individual's percentile rank can vary depending on which group is used to determine the ranking. A student is simultaneously a member of many groups: classroom, grade, building, school district, state, and nation.

Resources

To go to the website for the Interactive Illinois Report Card, which contains a wealth of information on Illinois schools and school improvement, click here.

Click here to visit the website of the Illinois State Board of Education.