In today’s education landscape, the need for rigorous curriculum and standards aligned assessments has become increasingly apparent. When teachers don’t have the tools to measure where their students are in their understanding of key concepts and standards, they are unable to provide targeted support to push them forward in their learning process. Interim assessments give educators the insights they need to adjust their classroom instruction to meet the needs of their specific students, which leads to improved student outcomes.
Carmen Schools of Science and Technology, a network of schools in Wisconsin, encountered this challenge firsthand when they adopted the Illustrative Math curriculum. They had a strong curriculum, but they needed interim assessments to be able to check students’ learning progress in their curriculum and standards throughout the year. Seeking a robust assessment solution that aligned with their curriculum, state standards, and end of year testing, Carmen Schools turned to CenterPoint Education Solutions. The following case study highlights the journey of Carmen Schools in implementing CenterPoint’s curriculum-aligned interim assessments and the transformative impact on their data processes and student outcomes.
The Case Study at a Glance
Challenge:
Carmen Schools of Science and Technology adopted the Illustrative Math curriculum and was looking for a rigorous assessment solution that not only aligns to the curriculum and common core standards, but also to Wisconsin state standards and end-of-year state testing. Before implementing CenterPoint assessments, they were using mostly teacher created assessments and struggled to ensure consistency and rigor in their assessment solutions.
Solution:
After adopting the Illustrative Math curriculum, and consulting with a range of stakeholders, Carmen Schools adopted CenterPoint’s Illustrative Math curriculum-aligned interim assessments. These assessments filled their need for a rigorous, consistent, and high-quality assessment solution that aligns to both curriculum and grade level standards.
Results:
The utilization of CenterPoint’s assessments led to the creation of a new data cycle within Carmen Schools. This cycle included professional development days for staff to analyze interim data and plan instruction accordingly. There was also notable improvement in student performance on the assessment over the past three school years. Across all grades there was a significant decrease in students scoring in the “Does Not Meet” range and an increase in those scoring in the “Meets” and “Exceeds” range.
Our case study with Carmen Schools underscores the importance of aligned, rigorous assessments in driving student success. Through their partnership with CenterPoint, Carmen Schools was able to overcome challenges related to alignment, consistency, and data-use, ultimately leading to improved instruction, data practices, and student outcomes. Kyra VandeBunte, the Director of Teaching and Learning at Carmen Schools, explained, “Ensuring that as many of our students are proficient in math as possible is really foundational to our our mission… so adopting the [CenterPoint interims] gave us a really clear bar of where our kids were on the road to proficiency and gave us information to be able to intervene and reteach where needed and just have a better sense of what was happening in our classrooms on a on a more regular basis.”
As Carmen Schools continues refining their protocol for leveraging the data from the interim assessments in the classroom, the assessments will only become more effective and impactful in transforming the student experience!
Click here to read the full case study and learn more about the results of our work with Carmen Schools!
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