MCAS Data Investigation Activity Ideas

Last week I posted information about an activity focused on the exploration of classroom growth data through the paper-and-pencil creation of a scatter plot of growth and scaled score for a given instructional group. One colleague asked me, "I wonder if people will be able to see how cool the activity is just by reading about it...or maybe it's only people like us who get excited by scatterplots??"

So, I'm posting this follow-up because I bet there are folks out there who missed the post last week, but I know you'll agree that the activity is worth investigating! Hope you'll check it out once you come up for air during this busy time of year. I also wanted to link back to some previous years' blog posts with additional MCAS data investigation activities...some ideas for digging in to the data during fall staff meetings or PLC's!

• Exploring Classroom Growth Data (August 2012)
• MCAS Item Analysis and the Standards for Mathematical Practice (August 2011)
• Engaging Staff in MCAS Data Exploration (September 2010)

Happy first days of school!

Data Warehouse Improvements

The folks at ESE are taking steps to improve the performance of the data warehouse in the short-term (given the pre-release of MCAS data scheduled for June) as well as the longer-term (August and beyond). One of the steps that will be most beneficial to EDW users is that there will be a direct link to pre-run reports stored in district dropboxes.

The pre-run reports will be:

Pre-burst District Reports (for district-level users with 209 and 210 roles)
o Items Analysis
o Performance, CPI and SGP by Subgroup
o Data files (.csv, .xls)

Pre-burst School reports (for school-level users with 211 roles)
o Student Roster
o Items Analysis
o Performance, CPI and SGP by Subgroup
o Data files (.csv, .xls)
o MCAS-Alt Portfolio

Additional updates and improvements will come later in the summer with re-designed reports and enhanced servers for the main EDW database. Stay tuned!

School and District Profiles Updated with 2010 MCAS and AYP Data

The School and District Profiles area of the ESE Web site has now been updated with 2010 MCAS and AYP Data. We expect the Data Warehouse reports to be updated with 2010 data later this week. However, keep in mind that much of the data contained in the School and District level reports in the Data Warehouse can be explored through the Profiles area - no login required!

For example, the information from the R-401 School Item Analysis report can also be found in the Profiles area. Here's how to get to it:

• From Profiles, choose 'Organization Type > Public School' and then the desired city or town and click 'Search.'


• Click on the name of the desired school from the list on the bottom of the page that appears.


• Click the 'Assessment' tab.


• Click 'Item by Item Results' in the left hand column and then choose the desired grade/subject combination.

The previously published Data Warehouse Report Summary contains additional information which correlates data from Profiles with various Data Warehouse reports. Since no login is required for Profiles, links can be easily shared with staff who may not have Data Warehouse access. No report running required!

School and District Profiles: A Gold Mine of Data!

While the Data Warehouse is a great resource, there is quite a bit of district- and school-level data available through the School and District Profiles area of the DESE Web site. (http://profiles.doe.mass.edu) No login or report running required!

I found this out the hard way a few months ago - after spending hours creating item analysis reports in the Data Warehouse, only to find out that the same information was available in Profiles for anyone to access directly!

Here's how: Use the link above and navigate to your district or school using the pop-up menus. Click the "Assessment" tab, and you will see a list of the available data reports listed on the left.

The "Item by Item Results" pages are VERY similar to R-301 and R-401 (Item Analysis) reports in the Data Warehouse...with no report running required! The URLs for these pages can easily be pasted into an email for distribution to staff (unlike the Data Warehouse, since there is no teacher level access at this time.)

Lots of other general data available there as well!