Board of Ed: recap of MCAS results

Wulfson: new test grades 3-8 ELA and math
"by all accounts it was an extremely successful administration"
expressed appreciation to staff "and many hundreds of teachers who engaged with us in all the aspects of test results and scoring"
school and district results provided last week
student and parent reports will be delivered today
providing materials for parents and schools
"not directly comparable"
"designed to signal readiness for academic success at the next grade level"
"a single data point...we caution against reading too many conclusions into it"
transition year because of Board's decision to have an accountability pause to reflect switch to new test as well as new requirements from ESSA
"vast majority of schools did not receive an accountability level this year"
seven Commendation schools
Randolph district exited level 4 status
existing level 4 schools showing good progress, want to see sustained progress over time
some will be good candidates for exiting next year if they maintain progress to date
goal in Level 5 is not to see how fast we can get in or out, but lasting progress
Doherty: very comprehensive presentation and "quite dense"
hope will pause to consider mistakes of the past and not make those mistakes going forward
one mistake was "using test far too much"
"to label schools as failing schools"
NCLB: all students proficient by 2014: a lot of schools labelled failing schools