Hi all. Things have been going pretty well for DS8 at school lately, got through the recent rough patch and on our way to getting back to where we were in the winter before we were attacked by the crazies. Overall DS is much more positive about school and has been doing well at home as well. Which brings me to today's concern, MAP test scores.
Last year he was in the gifted private and the most recent scores we had were from his winter and spring maps there. He got a 207 winter reading and 239 spring math. The math was on the 2-5, the reading on the k-2 test. Today we got the results from his fist map at the public school. He improved in both, going up to 224 in reading and 258 in math. He also took the language test, but I didn't get those results yet.
From what I can tell just looking around on the internet his reading score is pretty much exactly 99th%ile, similar to last year. It seems likely he will continue to perform around the 99th%ile in reading and maybe continued MAP testing will be useful to make sure his progress doesn't drop off over the years. But I'm not sure I see any further benefit to testing his math level, especially if they won't move him to the 6+. I am considering asking them to exempt him from the test next year.
This whole year they keep telling me he is having trouble with some of the 5th grade level stuff (last year the gifted school kept saying he was having trouble with 3rd grade stuff), but DS says the math is boring and easy. It is interesting that the public school used testing (IReady) at the beginning of the year to place him and determined he should be in 5th grade for math and reading, but the gifted school ignored their placement testing (which is what they said they used MAP for) and put DS in 3rd grade math and 1st grade reading.
At home DS has independently completed Khan Academy through 5th grade and has quite a bit of progress on higher grades, pre-algebra, and geometry. I've been convinced these past 2 years that the reason the schools are not seeing good math performance is that they are keeping DS at too low of a level and he is not interested enough to put forth good effort. Between what he has done on Khan, what we did in homeschool during K (Beast Academy 3) and the time he was off school last year (Beast Academy 4), the MAP tests, his 158 NVI, and his 160 on the WIAT math section I think it is pretty obvious that he has very high math potential. I do not expect the school to accommodate his current math ability in his 2nd grade classroom. I have talked to them about giving him coding or logic or even extra social skills practice at math time. It's not like he's going to fall behind. I just don't want DS to be unhappy at school. I get daily reports about refusal behaviors and tantrums at math time. They think it is because they are pushing him and he is frustrated by the difficulty of the material, I think he is frustrated by the low level of the material. How many long division problems does it take to show mastery of the concept?
So, I'm looking for opinions on the value of further map math testing. Or any further math testing really. Can the 2-5 really give any further valuable information? Since the school isn't likely to actually teach the level of math that he is ready for, could I argue that the point of the testing is lost (to inform curriculum)? The teacher told me he did great on the map math test, he scored in the 99%ile! I wish I knew what %ile his score was actually equivalent to. The norms appear to indicate that his score is pretty much the 99th%ile for 5th grade, which must be quite a bit above 99 for a 2nd grader. Do they not look at the difference?
I do have to say that I am still overall very happy with the public school and the effort they are putting forth. Last year he went up 2 points on the math MAP from summer to spring at a school that is advertised as serving PG kids, after a year at public school his math map score went up by 19. They identified and filled in his few gaps in 4th and 5th, which I assume is where the extra points came from. The gifted school just had him adding and subtracting time most of the year, which he hated! I just want to make sure that the school understands his score beyond just saying it's 99th%ile and I want to make sure DS isn't taking a test that can't really show any further useful data. It would be great if someone knew something official or had a link to show at what score there isn't much further value to the test. I did see that a score of 235+ on the 6+ indicates algebra readiness, but not sure if it does on the 2-5 (although is seems nwea says the score is equivalent across tests; I'm guessing that might be less true at the higher end?) Anyway, I talk too much :P I'd appreciate any advice/insight
