ESE Assessment Literacy Webinar Series

ESE is offering an 8-part webinar series which will run from now through December, focused on assessment literacy in the context of district-determined measures (DDM's) for educator evaluation. These sessions will run 60-90 minutes and are designed for district and/or school teams who will be involved in the identification and selection of district-determined measures. The webinars and related materials will be archived and posted online along with the schedule at http://www.doe.mass.edu/edeval/ddm/webinar.html.

Webinar Session 1, "Introduction: District-Determined Measures and Assessment Literacy" was offered last Thursday, March 14, but will run a second time on Wednesday, March 27, at 4:00 pm. The registration is available online (the registration page also includes the handouts/PowerPoint for Session 1) through this link.

Also, stay tuned to the ESE site for "Technical Guide A" which will be coming this spring to accompany Part VII: Rating Educator Impact on Student Learning Using District-Determined Measures of Student Learning.

PARCC Assessment Update

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) recently released a guidance document which contains important information on test design, the testing window and approximate testing time, and "rule of thumb" guidance on the number of computer devices needed to administer the PARCC assessments. The direct link to the PDF guidance document is here, or you can visit PARCC's Assessment Administration page for the latest news and updates, including a readiness tool, FAQ, user guide, and more.

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Additional Guidance on District-Determined Measures

As part of the Commonwealth's new educator evaluation system, districts will be required to identify and administer a district-wide set of student performance measures for each grade/subject that "permit a comparison of student learning gains." Where MCAS student growth percentile (SGP) exists, regulations state that it must be used as one of these measures, but it will be up to districts to identify/develop additional measures of student learning gains for many grades and subjects.

(You may recall a previous blog post about an activity designed to help teachers engage with and reflect on classroom-level growth data...I continue to use this activity with very positive responses from teacher teams!)

ESE has recently released a Quick Reference Guide on District-Determined Measures (along with QRG's on other EdEval topics) which summarizes the regulations and timeline related to the implementation of DDM's for all districts in Massachusetts. Additional guidance on the identification and selection of DDM's and related topics is scheduled for release later this Spring.