D181 on MAP Results: Growth 'Can Improve' in Areas, Achievement Good

District 181’s director of curriculum, assessment and instruction says this year’s MAP results show the district’s students are doing well in terms of achievement.

“In terms of growth, we’re doing well in many areas and we can improve in others,” Kevin Russell said at Monday night’s District 181 Board of Education meeting at Clarendon Hills Middle School. “I think the third grade math numbers show just that.”

Russell led a presentation of the district’s MAP results less than a month after those underwhelming third-grade math scores were released and became the subject of parent ire at the end of the first year of the Advanced Learning Plan's curriculum-compacting in third grade math.

READ: Less than Half of D181 3rd Graders Hit Math Growth Targets

Third graders indeed had the lowest growth rate in math among District 181 students with 47.2 percent hitting their individual targets. Just over 48 percent of sixth graders hit their individual targets, while more than 50 percent of fourth, fifth and seventh grade students hit theirs. The 55.4 percent clip of the district’s fifth graders was the best of the five grades that took the MAP test.

In reading, third graders again brought up the rear in terms of growth. Their 49.9 percent target-achievement rate was lower than the sixth grade’s 56.2 percent rate, the fourth and fifth grades’ 53.5 percent, and the seventh grade’s 51.3 percent rate.

See MAP results broken down by subject, grade-level and school here.

Russell and Superintendent Renée Schuster both addressed how to learn from the third grade math results, defined by a wide range of target-growth success rates among the different schools.

Students can be better informed about their growth targets and what they mean, Russell said, and district administration needs to make sure all principals and teachers are on the same page.

“We need to make sure that we’re providing them with consistent direction and consistent materials,” Russell said.

Schuster said the Oak School third grade teachers, whose students hit their growth targets at a district-best 80 percent clip, will be sharing their best practices with colleagues over the summer, and grade-level teacher collaboration sessions next year will occur once per month building-wide and once per month district-wide.

“That’s a big change for next year that will address this very concern about consistency,” Schuster said.

Though growth needed improvement in certain spots, Russell said the district’s achievement levels remain high.

Russell’s presentation charted students RIT scores, which are the raw MAP scores that are used to measure how much a student grows between tests, which are administered using computers in the fall, winter and spring.

Grade-level RIT averages in math and reading across all District 181 schools fell between the 97th to 99th percentiles according to the NWEA’s nationwide school norms—even third graders’ math scores.

Prospect School third graders, who hit their math growth targets at a district-worst 33.8 percent rate (which fell in the 18th percentile according to school growth norms), averaged a 206.2 RIT score in the fall and a 213.3 RIT score in the spring. The fall average was in the 99th percentile according to school norms, while the spring average was in the 97th percentile.

Board member Brendan Heneghan said that those percentiles could be misinterpreted by community members because school norms are lower than individual norms. 

“Throwing out a whole series of 99s really isn’t helpful to the individuals,” Heneghan said, noting that parents are generally concerned with how their students match up to individual norms, not how their school’s average matched up with school norms.

Schuster said the district has noted in both of its recent MAP-related presentations that the achievement percentiles have been measured using school norms.

“We’ve been very clear that the school is performing, compared to other schools, at the 99th percentile,” Schuster said. 

The individual norms were not part of the district’s presentation.

Board President Marty Turek said the MAP numbers should be used to develop a plan, not assign blame, while board members Glenn Yaeger and Jill Vorobiev both said it's the board's responsibility to determine what successful data looks like.

"As a board we need to provide that information to the administration," Yaeger said.

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