WISEdash for Districts MAP Dashboards

About the Data | Cautions | FAQ | Definitions | Z-Score | Trends and 1st Grade Cohort | Data Exchange | Resources

About the Data

For districts that use MAP and wish to request DPI to load MAP 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 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 data through WISEdash without interruption.

MAP--Measures of Academic Progress--scores are provided in WISEdash for those schools that voluntarily administer the MAP assessments in order to facilitate thorough data analyses. MAP scores are not used for school accountability purposes. Rather, schools and districts may elect to administer MAP 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 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 Assessments

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

That depends. If the student’s prior district has given DPI approval to load their MAP 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 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.

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.
• 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
  • typical: mean growth that was observed in the latest NWEA norming study for students who had the same starting RIT score for the growth period.
  • actual: difference between the student’s current RIT score and their previous RIT score for the growth period.
  • projected: mean growth that was observed in the latest NWEA norming study for students who had the same starting RIT score for the upcoming growth period.
• Growth Index: the RITs by which the student exceeded the typical (projected) RIT score (positive values), fell short of the typical RIT score (negative values) or exactly met the typical RIT (zero). Actual RIT Score - Projected RIT Score.
• Growth Index Z-Score: a representation of the number of standard deviations this student’s growth index is from the statewide growth index mean. Can be positive (exceeded mean), negative (fell short of mean) or zero (equal to mean).
• Growth Period
  • fall to fall: period of time between the fall of the previous school year and the fall of the current school year. Growth during this period generally reflect progress made during the previous school year.
  • fall to spring: period of time between the fall of the current school year and the spring of the current school year. Growth during this period generally reflect progress made during 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. Growth during this period generally reflect progress made during the current school year.
• no winter growth: no growth period is associated with the winter test term.
• 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.
• National Percentile: The percentage of students in NWEA’s nationally normed group for this grade that scored below or equal to this student’s RIT score.
• RIT Score: The student’s overall scale score on the test.
• RIT Standard Deviation (Std Dev): Indicates the variability of scores within this grade level, subject, and test term across all districts that have provided authorization to DPI. A higher standard deviation generally reflects a wider range of scores.
• 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.
• RIT Z-Score: A representation of the number of standard deviations this student’s RIT score is from the statewide RIT mean. Can be positive (exceeded mean), negative (fell short of mean) or zero (equal to mean).
• Test Type
  • Survey: 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 Survey test only produces an overall score for the subject being tested and no information about goal areas.
  • Survey With Goals: A test with approximately 50 questions which produces a score for each of the goal areas as well as an overall score.
  • Level Test (not common): Obsolete paper and pencil tests that are no longer in use.

MAP Z-Score

The MAP Z-Score dashboard debuts the first usage of the “Z-Score”, or “Standard Score” within WISEdash. The benefit of a Z-Score is its comparability to other measures. Test scores and test score growth often follow a normal (bell-curve or “Z”) distribution. On these charts, MAP scores and MAP growth have been transformed to a scale where the statewide average is depicted as 0.0 and one standard deviation from that statewide average is +/-1.0. Positive values on this scale reflect scores that are above the statewide average and negative values are below the statewide average. For example, scores shown at +1.3 are (1.3 x the standard deviation) better than the statewide average. Each bar represents the number of students with that Z-Score rounded to one decimal.

In this way, for example, scores on a 3rd grade MAP administration can be directly compared to scores on a 4th grade MAP administration on the same scale. This is useful when schools and districts are interested in comparing across grade levels and time for grade levels with similar content. The drawback of such comparisons, especially with different tests, is that they may not be strictly valid comparisons of tests with widely differing content. While this is typically not the case with MAP testing, dashboard users need to be familiar with the test contents being compared.

Note that MAP statewide averages and standard deviations can change over time, even for the same test administration as additional districts are authorized and added to the statewide pool of results.

MAP Trends and 1st Grade Cohort

Presentation of trend data is approached differently for MAP 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 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 across the years.

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

MAP Data Exchange

Districts elect to administer different MAP tests (content areas) in different grades and in different intervals. Districts can opt in to viewing 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 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 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)  https://reports.nwea.org/