What do nj ask scores mean

Below, we've answered some of the most common questions parents have been asking. Start with the background of PARCC or click on one of the following topics to jump into the specifics.

The PARCC tests are math and English exams named after a consortium of states that designed and administered a common set of assessments for grades More than 20 states were initially in the consortium -- called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers -- but some decided to join a different testing group or create their own exams.

Why did New Jersey use a new test? State education officials have said they wanted an improvement over New Jersey's prior exams.

They said the test given to younger students, the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge, identified students who were struggling but didn't provide enough information about what skills those students hadn't mastered. The test also did not draw much distinction between average and high-performing students, according to the state Department of Education.

The test for high school students, the High School Proficiency Assessment, tested material mostly learned in eighth or ninth grade, but students did not take the exams until they were juniors, according to the state.

There are a lot of different numbers on the score report. Which one is the most important? The number you are probably most interested in is on a scale of , called your child's "performance level. Students who scored a four or five are meeting or exceeding those expectations. So, how many questions did my child get right or wrong? PARCC didn't release that. The scoring was more complex than simply "right" or "wrong. On some questions, even students with the best grasp on the skill being tested weren't expected to earn all of the points.

On other questions, students from two or three performance levels might all have been expected to get the same number of points. The scoring range is based on what the teacher and administrator consider reasonable learning for the particular students. This makes the SGO system a much fairer way to evaluate teachers whose students may perform at lower levels than others. A: The Department believes that the vast majority of educators will act ethically and honestly in setting SGOs that will help their students grow.

In addition, AchieveNJ rewards appropriate professional behavior through the Evaluation Leadership component of principal evaluation. This aspect of a principal's performance will be assessed with New Jersey's Principal Evaluation Leadership Instrument.

A component of this rubric requires principals to approve and monitor the quality of SGOs see section 2D in the rubric. Therefore, teachers of few students should consider using learning standards that apply across classes. In addition, teachers should provide multiple assessment opportunities for each student in a small group. A: In this situation, teachers should select groups of students that they directly instruct and set SGOs that are proportional to the instructional time they spend with them.

As with small groups of students, they should consider using learning standards that apply across classes. A: The assessment used for an SGO is a district-based decision. If the assessment is aligned with World class Instructional Design and Assessment WIDA standards and measures English language development, then the district may use a commercially developed assessment. To understand the English language proficiency levels, districts may choose to use student work samples and compare them to examples for each proficiency level found at www.

The performance definitions and the Model Performance Indicators amplification can be used as guidelines in developing district assessments that track learners' progress. A: SGOs are not required for school counselors, but only for teachers with an assigned class roster.

However, the Department encourages all educators to set SGOs to help improve their performance by goal setting. Office of Evaluation staff members have worked with several professional organizations that represent these educational specialists to develop SGO samples that may be useful reference documents.

Please contact your professional organization for these samples. A: Like a general education teacher, your SGO should be tailored to meet the needs of your students. As much as possible, your SGOs should encompass the curriculum and students for which you are responsible. The IEPs of the students you teach contain added guidance to help you provide the type of instructional support that will help your students succeed.

You may use this guidance to help inform your SGOs. For example, you may set an SGO that includes standards for reading comprehension. The IEP of a student may include strategies to improve the comprehension skills that the individual student has not yet learned. A: One way to tackle this is to set several goals for shorter periods of time e.

You can develop each goal with baseline data at the start of a unit of instruction, and develop a scoring plan that reflects the number of students you currently have. Your goal can be written in terms of a percentage of students that is enrolled in the class for a significant proportion of the unit.

At the end of the unit, you can assess the performance of your students and get a rating for the goal you have set. Those students who have left the class during this period of instruction would not count in this rating. Students who have newly entered the class would not count either. You would repeat this cycle with the new population of students making adjustments to reflect the change in your student population. At the end of the SGO period, your final rating is based on your average success in each of the unit goals you have set.

Teachers who teach quarterly courses may use a similar approach to this. A: The Department has been working with groups of educators to develop SGO exemplars, which will be added in the future. However, all exemplars are designed to be teaching tools that all teachers and administrators can use to help develop their own SGOs.

The structure of each exemplar is the same and the development process can be applied to any subject and grade. Even though the assessment may vary, the exemplars can help guide all teachers in writing their own SGOs. The annotated versions provide commentary showing how the author of the exemplar made decisions during the development process. The commentary also shows how the SGO might be improved. Administrators should carefully review these comments as they prepare to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the SGOs that their teachers develop.

A: This is one of few cases where teachers may have identical SGOs. If you both have the same students, teach the same material, and use the same assessments, it makes sense to develop and apply the same SGO. In cases where this type of collaborative relationship is not present, teachers may set different SGOs.

A: If you are teaching a group of students whose academic progress is limited by certain behavioral or emotional restrictions e. However, the design of this SGO should still capture a significant portion of the work that you are doing with your students throughout the year. In addition, a non-academic SGO for a group of students must be appropriate for all of the students in the group. If your group of students is extremely diverse, it would be better to set individual goals for each of the students tailored to their specific needs and identified areas of growth.

You would then aggregate the results of these goals into one SGO score. A: There are two options here. Again: we can debate that point.

Both the old and the new tests yield bell curve distributions; the choice of where to set the cut point for proficiency has nothing to do with that. High scoring schools would still score high — and would still be much less likely to enroll large percentages of children in economic disadvantage.

He is also a full-time public school teacher in Warren Township and a lecturer in public school finance at Rutgers University. Subscribe to NJ Spotlight News. Today's Spotlight Weekly Editor's Picks.