NWEA is the test maker. According to our district's assessment coordinator, NWEA trains the schools on how the test is designed; what data the assessment provides; how to interpret the data; what is appropriate and not appropriate to do with the data; and what additional materials are available to the schools to support the next steps with instruction. They developed the Norms. They made an error developing the Preliminary and Initial norms.

The school made an error substituting the Preliminary Norms in place of the official norms. The district didn't seem to provide any oversight to prevent this and hasn't taken steps to make sure other schools in our district aren't doing the same thing.

Trying to get this addressed at the school and district level, I get the impression that they view erroneous percentiles as no big deal. I included the examples to show why it is a big deal.

The letter I wanted to write channeled the Saturday Night Live comedian:
Identify the problem. FIX IT!! Identify another problem. FIX IT! Repeat as necessary until it's all fixed!



Thanks for the feedback