This is not the first time there has been confusion with the MEAP test. In recent events, the scores for elementary and middle school levels were posted and then quickly removed. Many may wonder why.
In last week’s issue of The Clarkston News, the MEAP confusion was briefly explained. Now, new reasons for why the scores were pulled are clear.
According to Director of Marketing and Communications for Clarkston Community Schools Anita Banach, the results were pulled due to the writing portion. The writing portion is one part of the four section test. There is a prompt for students to follow, and apparently the prompt may have been more difficult than expected.
Due to the writing prompt, the MEAP scores came out unusually low in the writing portion. This low level caused shock amongst school officials and administrators.
‘Everyone was shocked about the writing scores,? said Banach. ‘There was a lot of backlash from the state so they pulled the scores to determine why they were so low.?
The Michigan Department of Education pulled the results almost immediately after they were posted, and looked at previous years? MEAP scores. Realizing the vast difference in last year’s test compared to this year’s, administrators decided that maybe the system needed to change for the future.
‘There were a lot of speculations as to why the results were so low,? said Banach. ‘Now we know that the prompt was wrong.?
The state’s technical advisory committee of national testing experts reviewed the writing scores, the statistical analysis of those scores and the test itself. The committee concluded that the decline reflected an increase in the difficulty of this year’s writing test compared to previous years.
According to the Michigan Department of Education, scores for all MEAP tests reflect only changes in student’s ability, not changes in the difficulty of the test. When changes in test scores reflect changes in test difficulty, the score scale is mathematically adjusted to be comparable to previous years.
According to Edward Roeber, senior executive director of the state’s Office of Educational Assessment and Accountability, these changes are standard procedure for test administrators nationally. According to Roeber, these procedures assure that students with the same writing ability, from year-to-year, receive the same score regardless of the year they were tested.
For more information on MEAP testing, visit www.michigan.gov/mpe.