WISEdash for Districts MAP Dashboards

About the Data

For districts that use MAP Growth and wish to request DPI to load MAP Growth data, effective for school year 2021-22 and beyond, please use the Local Assessment Opt-in Screen in the WISEadmin Portal. As the Data Disclosure Authorization has changed, it is important that you read the new authorization and indicate your "opt in" preference to receiving MAP Growth data, especially if, you had previously authorized DPI to load the data under the old process. Doing so will allow your district to continue to receive MAP Growth data through WISEdash without interruption.

MAP Growth scores are provided in WISEdash for those schools that voluntarily administer the MAP Growth assessments in order to facilitate thorough data analyses. MAP Growth scores are not used for school accountability purposes. Rather, schools and districts may elect to administer MAP Growth assessments to track their students’ progress throughout the school year. These benchmark tests are an important part of a balanced assessment system, and as such, DPI is supporting the use and dissemination of results by making these dashboards available. There are no plans to make these data public; that is, they cannot be accessed in WISEdash Public Portal.

MAP Growth results are available in WISEdash beginning with the results from the 2005-06 school year, including fall to spring growth. Year-to-year growth results (fall to fall and spring to spring) are available beginning with the results from the 2006-07 school year.

Cautions

MAP Growth: All Subgroups shows actual vs. typical growth by standard groups e.g. race, gender, etc. The average typical growth for members of a group (Asian, for example) are not statewide or national averages for all Asian students. NWEA provides a projected growth for each student’s test result. DPI averages those individual projected growth values within the parameters of your selected dashboard filters. So if there are 4 Asian students included in the growth bar on a graph, then the average typical growth shown is the average projected growth of those 4 students.

Frequently Asked Questions about Map Growth Assessments

1. I have a new student that transferred from another district that uses MAP Growth assessments. Will that student’s MAP Growth results be transferred as well?

That depends. If the student’s prior district has given DPI approval to load their MAP Growth results from NWEA, then that student’s individual results will be available to WISEdash users where ever that student transfers. The student’s results from the prior district will not be included in aggregate results for your district. The student will not be included when drilling on your district’s results until the student completes a MAP Growth test while enrolled in your district. However, you can still see those prior results for the student by using Student Search and viewing the student’s Student Profile - MAP Growth.

Definitions

District Average RIT Score: The mean (average) of all RIT scores for this grade level, subject, and test term for the district in which the student is currently (or most recently) enrolled.
First Grade Cohort: The calendar year the student ended (or is projected to end) first grade. For KG (5-year-old kindergarten), this is the year following the end of the current school year.
Instructional Area Performance: Instructional areas are reporting categories on MAP Growth reports that are aligned to standards or benchmarks. The full-length MAP Growth tests contain at least seven questions related to each instructional area, allowing you to see how a student is performing in the instructional areas (such as algebraic thinking) as well as the overall subject (such as mathematics). Instructors can use this information to concentrate on a student's areas of relative strength and areas of concern. See Areas of Relative Strength and Areas of Concern for more information.
Goals Performance: The student’s performance in the goal strands tested in this subject. Data is displayed either as a RIT score or performance range quintile (20% ranges).
Growth
- Projected/Typical Growth: The change in RIT score that about half of US students will make over time, based on student growth norms. The student’s initial score plus projected growth equals projected RIT. The Student Growth Summary Report shows grade-level growth projections, which are based on school growth norms.
- Observed Growth/RIT Growth: The change in a student’s RIT score during the growth comparison period. On the Student Growth Summary Report, observed growth is the end-term mean RIT minus the start-term mean RIT.
Growth Indices
- Conditional Growth Index: This index allows for growth comparisons between students. It incorporates conditions that affect growth, including weeks of instruction before testing and students’ starting RIT scores. A value of zero corresponds to mean growth, indicating growth matched projection.
- Growth Index: The difference between observed and projected growth. A zero indicates the student met projection exactly. Do not use this index to compare performance between students; use the conditional growth index instead.
Growth Comparison Period: The two terms for which you wish to receive student growth data. Growth during these periods generally reflects progress made during the previous school year.
- fall to fall: period between the fall of the previous school year and the fall of the current school year.
- fall to winter: period between the fall of the current school year and the winter of the current school year.
- fall to spring: period between the fall of the current school year and the spring of the current school year.
- winter to winter: period between the winter of the previous school year and the winter of the current school year.
- winter to spring: period between the winter of the current school year and the spring of the current school year.
- spring to spring: period of time between the spring of the previous school year and the spring of the current school year.
National Mean: The average RIT score for students in the same grade and tested in the same term as observed in the most recent NWEA RIT Scale Norms study.
Percentile: The percentage of students in the NWEA national norm sample for a grade and subject area that a given student’s score (or group of students’ mean score) equaled or exceeded. Percentile range is computed by identifying the percentile ranks of the low and high ends of the RIT score range.
RIT Score: The student’s overall scale score on the test for a given subject.
RIT Standard Deviation (Std Dev): Indicates academic diversity of a group of students. The lower the number, the more students are alike (zero would mean all scores are the same). The higher the number, the greater the diversity in this group.
RIT Statewide Mean: The mean (average) of all RIT scores for this grade level, subject, and test term across all districts that have provided authorization to DPI.
Test Type
- MAP Growth Test: A test with approximately 43 questions which produces a score for each of the instructional areas as well as an overall score.
- MAP Growth Screening Test: A short test, usually about 20 questions, used for class placement such as a student entering a school from another district, home schooled student entering public school or similar purposes. The Screening test only produces an overall score for the subject being tested and no information about instructional area. For more information on Map Growth Test Types, please visit MAP Growth Test Updates.

Conditional Growth Index

The conditional growth index (CGI) is a normative growth metric. It is a standardized measure of observed student or school growth compared to the 2020 NWEA student or school growth norms. These growth norms indicate median growth levels for students or schools based on their grade, starting RIT score, the subject in which they tested, and the amount of instructional time between two test events.

Also known as a z-score, the CGI expresses student growth in standard deviation units above or below the growth norms. A CGI score of zero indicates a student showed the same amount of growth as the growth norms. Positive CGI scores indicate that a student’s growth exceeded the growth norms, whereas negative CGI scores indicate that a student's growth was less than the growth norms. A CGI score of 1.0 means a student's growth is one standard deviation above the growth norm; conversely, a CGI score of -1.0 means a student’s growth is one standard deviation below the growth norm. The CGI allows for growth comparisons to be made between students of differing achievement levels, and across different grades and subject areas.

For more information on CGI, please visit Conditional Growth Index: Definition and Calculation.

Trends and 1st Grade Cohort

Presentation of trend data is approached differently for MAP Growth dashboards than in other WISEdash topic areas. Rather than displaying a selected grade level over the most recent five years, MAP Growth and Achievement (Trends) shows all years of MAP Growth results for all students in a selected first grade cohort. That is, the group of students that ended the year together in first grade. The dashboard shows how that same group of students performed on each administration of MAP Growth across the years.

For example, in 2013-14, if you wanted to display the MAP Growth performance of your school’s 5th grade students for the current school year, you would select 2010 under 1st Grade Cohort filter - the year they completed the first grade. WISEdash will show how that group of students have performed on MAP Growth tests in each year up to the present year.

Note that as students in a 1st Grade Cohort progress through the school years, their grade levels may not all remain alike. Some may repeat a grade level, others may skip a level. Therefore, a small number of students represented in a school year bar on the graph may be in a different grade level than the others when tested.

Data Exchange

Districts elect to administer different MAP Growth tests (content areas) in different grades and in different intervals. Districts can opt in to view their MAP data in WISEdash by completing the data use agreement in the WISEadmin Portal. The data use agreement allows NWEA, the publisher of MAP Growth tests, to provide assessment results directly to DPI. After the close of a test term for all districts across the state, NWEA gathers the results from that test term for all districts with signed agreements and provides the file to DPI. DPI loads those results into our data warehouse for presentation in WISEdash for Districts. WISEdash for Districts displays MAP Growth results for fall, winter, and spring test terms (not for summer test term).

Part of the data loading process involves matching the assessment with the appropriate student in the data warehouse. That process uses the WSN (if provided), student name, and date of birth and allows some degree of variation or inaccuracy. Even so, some records cannot be matched and will be loaded and reported as unknown. A very small percentage of records may be misidentified with an incorrect student.

Planned Load Schedule

Fall test term: mid-December
Winter test term: mid-March
Spring test term: end of June

Resources

NWEA secure login for reporting and additional reference material (NWEA User ID required).

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