WASHINGTON, DC – A consortium of District public charter schools will receive nearly $500,000 to develop rigorous models for measuring student growth through the 2012 Race to the Top Expanded Growth Assessment grant, an award announced today by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE).
Selected to measure and compare student growth, the consortium – led by KIPP DC and including Friendship and IDEA Public Charter Schools – will use the award funds to support implementation of the Measures of Academic Progress, a national, computer-based assessment designed by the Northwest Evaluation Association to measure student’s subject-and-grade-level proficiency.
“OSSE is committed to expanding teacher evaluation metrics under rigorous conditions to ensure quality,” said State Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley Jones, describing how the grant project will provide assessments and growth measures in several grades and emphasizes priority subjects not currently included in the existing District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) statewide exam.
“We are all partners in education, and this award presents us with a way to streamline existing assessment processes and provide schools with usable data to better inform teaching practices.”
Under the grant, the Measures of Academic Progress will be administered three times during the 2012-2013 school year to 5,370 students across eight grade levels throughout the three consortium schools and will be aligned to both the DC CAS and Common Core State Standards. The assessments will increase efforts to expand student data, assess college readiness and compare student performance nationwide, and student progress will be tracked and measured throughout the school year to establish proficiency baselines when assessing teacher instruction.
About Race to the Top
Created by the U.S. Department of Education to support states that demonstrate strong plans for education reform, Washington, D.C. received $75 million in Race to the Top award funds in 2010 over four years and in year one, engaged 90% of the District’s K-12 population while directly impacting nearly 59,000 students and 200 District schools. Race to the Top emphasizes four key goals: transitioning to enhanced standards, enhancing the access and use of data, improving teacher and principal effectiveness and turning around the lowest achieving schools.
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