Thanks Inky for the link to percentile scores of other grades.
The middle school principal doesn't seem to give much weightage to the norms in NWEA's large test population. I understand where he's coming from cos kids at this school also take the ERB, which give comparison of performance against US public schools, US private schools and International Schools. Eg, someone showed me her daughter's score was at 99th percentile of Public schools, but only 75th percentile compared to private schools. International schools come somewhere in between.
If NWEA had a different table for RIT scores and percentiles of students at Public vs Private schools, that would be a lot more useful for advocacy purposes. I suspect too that that is why GT programs are reluctant to accept NWEA MAP scores as there may be a wide range of ability even at the 99th percentile level. Would be really helpful to see what are the scores at the 99th percentile for students in Private schools.
We are not in the US, so taking SATs via talent search isn't an option. He does independent learning at home and took part in the AMC8 and AMC10 (American Math Competition for Grades 8 and 10) for which he was awarded Honor Roll and Merit Cert, but no on-line program yet.
My son's report does not have rate of growth as this is the first time the school is implementing MAP.
I think my son just enjoys being with his friends and the lively exchanges in the classroom, which I really appreciate. He has a wonderful teacher who engages the children and is terribly funny.
I expect he'll still be happy next year as long as his friends are in the same school. While his friends may not be as academically advanced as he is, they are still a very intelligent bunch of kids, I can tell from the way they interact and talk. The school is thus perfect in every sense except for the fact that academic rigor is missing. For now, what is missing from school, we supplement at home; I hope with this arrangement, his MAP RIT scores will still show growth. We'll see.
Thanks for your advice.
