Dear Lincoln Public Schools Families,
I want to start this week’s message with a note of thanks. Earlier today at Town Meeting the residents of Lincoln unanimously approved the Lincoln-side budget (along with other Town budgets). We are incredibly appreciative of the support of the community, and will continue to work to be faithful financial stewards while providing a high-quality education to all our students.
This last week was the start of MCAS testing, so I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss ways that we collect information about student academic progress. For those families that are new to Massachusetts, MCAS stands for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System and is the series of standardized tests that students take in grades 3 - 8 (and also in high school). The purpose of the MCAS is to get standardized information on the extent to which students are mastering the content and skills in the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks. We do a deep dive into our MCAS results in the fall (after we have received them from the state), and they help us to identify big-picture strengths and areas for improvement, especially as we look at trends across multiple years.
MCAS tests happen in grades 3 - 8 in English Language Arts (ELA) and Math; 5th graders and 8th graders are also tested in Science and Technology/Engineering (STE); and 8th graders are now also tested in Civics. The ELA MCAS tests occurred this last week, and testing in the other subjects will take place at different times in May.
Along with state tests, we also use standardized district reading and math assessments in grades K-8. Those assessments only take about 45 minutes to complete (as compared to MCAS tests, which last several hours each), and we administer them in the fall, winter, and spring. While we have to wait for months to get MCAS results, we get results from district assessments right away, which allows teachers to respond to individual student needs and make curricular and instructional adjustments. We are also able to use district assessment results to look at district-, school-, and grade-level trends (and one of the goals of our
District Improvement Plan is tied directly to those results in reading).
Finally, teachers give a variety of classroom assessments on a regular basis to collect feedback on students’ individual academic progress, and to look at grade-level progress. Those assessments tie directly to the curriculum and to state standards, and then also form the basis for feedback that we share with parents through report cards and progress reports.
