Dear District Leaders, Educators, and Community Stakeholders:
Please join Acting Commissioner Jeff Wulfson at the South Shore Community Forum on K–12 Education from 6–8 p.m. on Wednesday, October 11, at Abington High School, 201 Gliniewicz Way, Abington. The commissioner will highlight ESE’s new statewide Leading the Nation celebration and discuss the successes and challenges of the state's K–12 school system, how the state and districts work together, and the roles of learning standards and assessments in supporting teaching and learning. The event is free and open to the public, but people who plan to attend are asked to register online.
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The latest news on the next-generation MCAS assessment
- Board discusses next-generation MCAS. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education met on September 26, 2017, and discussed projected results for the 2017 grades 3–8 MCAS administration, and the preliminary steps for transitioning to the next-generation grade 10 MCAS. The projected results prompted a discussion about the process by which experienced Massachusetts educators set the standards for the test and created consistently high expectations across grades to help students prepare for college and a career. More information on the new achievement levels, new scoring scale, and resources for understanding these changes will be shared in the October update.
- Schedule for Releasing Results from the 2017 Tests. The Department tentatively plans to release official MCAS results publicly the week of October 16. This will include school, district, and state MCAS scores as well as grade 10 accountability results. There will not be any new Level 4 or 5 K–8 schools this fall because of the new assessment. Elementary and middle schools that are now in Levels 1–3 will not have an accountability level this fall. (The one exception to this is in schools where student participation on MCAS was less than 90 percent, in which case the school will be in Level 3.)
- Continued Transition to Computer-Based Testing. The transition to full computer-based testing will continue in spring 2018, with the expectation that schools will administer the following tests using the computer-based format:
- Grade 4 ELA and Mathematics
- Grade 5 ELA, Mathematics, and legacy Science and Technology/Engineering (STE)
- Grade 7 ELA and Mathematics
- Grade 8 ELA, Mathematics, and legacy STE
- (For grades 3 and 6, schools may elect to administer either the computer-based or paper-based tests in spring 2018. Paper-based tests will continue to be available as an accommodation for certain students with disabilities.)
- Review of spring 2017 test administration. Districts administered the first next-generation MCAS ELA and Mathematics tests to students in grades 3–8 in spring 2017. About 250,000 students (approximately 60 percent) took the computer-based version of the test. Participation rates remained high statewide, ranging from 97.9 percent to 99.5 percent depending on grade and subject matter.
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ESE invites educators to join its mathematics, literacy, and science educator networks
- The ESE educator networks are designed to help support the implementation of the 2017 Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA)/Literacy Frameworks and the 2016 Science and Technology/Engineering (STE) Framework. ESE is calling on classroom leaders, school leaders, and district leaders to partner across districts to learn, to test and refine tools and strategies, and to innovate. Sessions begin this month and continue into early 2017. You can learn more about the networks and register online.
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