Assessment

Tyler ISD Adopts NWEA Assessment Suite

• By Leila Meyer
• 12/10/15

Tyler Independent School District in Texas has adopted a comprehensive assessment suite as part of its five-year strategic plan.

The plan called for "innovative methods to provide skills that match the talents and aspirations of each student," according to the document. To help make that plan a reality, the district decided to implement computer-based adaptive assessments that would provide teachers with immediate feedback so they could adjust their instruction accordingly.

The district selected a suite of assessments from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), including the Children's Progress Academic Assessments (CPAA), Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) and Skills Navigator. "The computer adaptive nature of the NWEA assessments will allow us to more effectively target instruction and provide unique learning experiences for every child," said Marty Crawford, superintendent of Tyler ISD, in a prepared statement.

CPAA is a computer adaptive skills assessment of early literacy and mathematics skills for use with pre-kindergarten through grade 3. According to information from NWEA, CPAA "includes instructional scaffolding for students who struggle and skill-specific next steps for each child and classroom."

MAP is a computer adaptive interim assessment of reading, language usage and mathematics for use with grades 2-12. According to NWEA, MAP "dynamically adjusts to each student's level of learning, independent of grade level, and provides actionable data for teachers to make instructional adjustments."

"The diverse applications of the MAP data has allowed us to streamline our assessment program while giving us the added ability to track student growth and college readiness," said Crawford.

Skills Navigator is a classroom assessment of math, reading comprehension, vocabulary and language usage for students working at a K-8 level. The assessments take five to 15 minutes and are designed to be used as often as necessary to assess skills and monitor student progress.

Tyler ISD will use the NWEA assessment suite with more than 15,000 students in pre-kindergarten through high school at its 28 school campuses.