Preparation, planning and assessment administration are critical steps is the process of using assessment data to improve teaching and learning. The resources on this page provide assistance with the requirements and best practices of assessment administration.
1. What are the MAP Professional Learning Opportunities in the 2022-23 school year?
All MAP Professional Learning Opportunities are listed in our
2022-23 PLO guide.
There is additional information on all Center events available on our Upcoming Events page.
Also, our annual conference will be held on August 23, 2022 in Novi. For more information on the annual conference, visit our conference page.
2. When are the 2022-23 designated assessment windows?
Fall: October 3 – 21, 2022*
Winter (Optional): February 13 – March 3, 2023**
Spring: May 15 – June 2, 2023*
The Center provides all of the 2022-23 assessment windows and all assessment-related submission requirements in the Master Calendar of Reporting Requirements Assessment Guide.
*Schools with Labor Day waivers from the Michigan Department of Education must follow their customized assessment windows and assessment-related Master Calendar of Reporting Requirements due dates.
**This is the default winter window. Schools will notify the Center if and when they would prefer to test via the MAP Growth Winter Testing Window Choice Epicenter task that is due on November 16, 2022. This Epicenter task provides the opportunity for schools to choose when the winter test window will open and close. Alternatively, schools will also have the option to indicate that they will not administer the MAP Growth assessment during the winter.
3. What are the benchmark assessment requirements for the 2022-2023 school year?
In summary, the State School Aid Act currently requires all Michigan districts to:
- Establish educational goals expected to be achieved for the 2022-2023 school year for all students in PK-12.
- Administer a reading and math benchmark assessment to students in grades K-8 in the fall and spring.
- Report progress toward the educational goals disaggregated by grade level, student demographics, and mode of instruction at the February 2023 board meeting, and again by the last day of the 2022-2023 school year for all students in PK-12.
- Post the progress update presented at the public board meeting through the transparency reporting link on the school’s website (ensure FERPA compliance).
For additional information, please refer to the detailed summary of the requirements as well as the reminder for winter assessments and reporting.
4. What are the assessment administration requirements and best practices?
Please see the MAP Assessment Requirements and Best Practices document for a full description of the assessment administration requirements and best practices, and watch the Establishing Exceptional Assessment Environments video.
5. Which grade levels and subject areas must be assessed according to the charter contract?
Please see Section 7b; Educational Goal and Related Measures and Section 7e; Methods of Pupil Assessment of your charter contract for the grade levels and subject areas you are required to assess.
6. Is administration of the winter assessment required?
MAP Growth testing is not required by our office during the winter. However, many schools choose to administer MAP Growth during the winter to check students’ progress mid-year. Additionally, many schools use MAP Growth data for their mid-year, legislatively required, benchmark assessment goal.
For additional information, please refer to the detailed summary of the requirements as well as the reminder for winter assessments and reporting.
7. What accommodations can be utilized during the administration of MAP?
Please see the MAP Assessment Requirements and Best Practices for a full description of student accommodations.
- Note: Text-to-Speech (TTS) may be utilized for the reading assessment for answer choices, question directions or questions/prompts. TTS may not be utilized for reading passages. If TTS for reading passages is represented as a need in a student’s IEP or 504 Plan, the student must be exempted from the reading assessment. This exemption must be documented on the Assessment Coordinator Verification Form (Form A2). This exemption is appropriate for a very small number of students (estimated to be approximately 1-2 percent of students with disabilities participating in general assessment; this number is not a cap but an anticipated percentage of student need).
- TTS may be utilized for the math assessment for answer choices, question directions and questions/prompts.
Please see NWEA’s Accessibility & Accommodations FAQ for a full description of student accommodations as recommended by NWEA.
8. How does the Center calculate student participation rates during the fall and spring designated assessment windows?
The Center obtains the number of students who completed the assessments from the MAP site, enrollment provided by the academy on the Assessment Coordinator Verification form, as well as academy-entered enrollment information from MSDS to complete participation calculations.
Extenuating circumstances (quarantine, hospitalization, incarceration, etc.) prohibiting students from completing the assessment must be noted on the Assessment Coordinator Verification form. The Center may require additional documentation during the participation calculation process for clarification.
9. What technical support is available before, during and after assessment administration?
NWEA Partner Support
7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday
877-4NWEA-TS // (877) 469-3287
techsupport@nwea.org
Chat with an NWEA Expert
MAP Help Center for additional assistance
10. Why was the Assessment Coordinator Verification Form (Form A2) rejected in Epicenter?
The Assessment Coordinator Verification form involves a critical process designed to ensure that MAP reports include the test data for all students. To ensure reports holistically demonstrate the achievement and growth for every student you serve, certain student data elements must be accurate and complete on the NWEA website. Prior to submitting Form A2, ensure accurate completion of all students’:
- First and last names
- 10-digit Unique Identification Code (UIC)
- Birthdate
- Grade level
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- School of Record
- Class
- Current Term
If any of the required student demographic information is missing or incomplete, the form will not be accepted in Epicenter. For support with this process, view the Guidance for Verifying Student Data Elements for Form A2 video and/or question 10 below.
Note: This process takes time. Please begin this process at the beginning of the test window and submit Form A2 early to allow time for corrections if needed.
11. How can one ensure leading zeroes on students’ Unique Identification Codes (UIC) are not dropped when creating rosters and opening data files?
When creating and uploading the Class Roster File (CRF):
- Format the Student ID column as “Text” to ensure Excel does not automatically drop leading zeroes when saving, opening and/or uploading the CRF to NWEA’s MAP site.
When opening a Students by District report or a CRF:
- Please refer to the Guidance for Verifying and Correcting Students Data Elements for Form A2 video and/or the written guidance provided below.
- Right-click on the .csv file and select Open with… Select Notepad.
- With the file open in Notepad, Select File => Save As.
- Remove the .csv from the file name and make sure the type is text.
- Close the file in Notepad.
- Open Excel.
- Go to File => Open => go to folder where the file has been saved. NOTE: if the file isn’t shown, select the file type (which will probably say All Excel Files…) and using the drop-down box, select All Files.
- Select the text file and open. A Text Import Wizard will pop up. Select ‘Delimited’ as the file type. Check the box; ‘My data has headers,’ then Next.
- Click on the ‘comma’ box under delimiters, then Next.
- Scroll through the file and locate the UIC in the ‘Student ID’ field. Highlight the column and select ‘Text’ in the Column Data Format box. Click Finish.
- In the spreadsheet that opens, find the Student ID field, and highlight the entire column.
- Right Click, select ‘Format Cells.’
- Go to the number tab and select ‘Text.’ Hit OK, then save the file as an Excel sheet.
12. What are the spring achievement measures listed in the charter contract in Section 7b: Educational Goal and Related Measures?
The NWEA MAP 2020 National Norms (spring achievement measures) are:
Grade | MAP Reading Student
Achievement Norms | MAP Math Student
Achievement Norms |
3 | 197.12 | 201.08 |
4 | 204.83 | 210.51 |
5 | 210.98 | 218.75 |
6 | 215.36 | 222.88 |
7 | 218.36 | 226.73 |
8 | 221.66 | 230.30 |
For additional information on NWEA’s norms, please see NWEA’s MAP Growth Normative Data Overview.
13. What requirements are in place regarding students’ retesting?
No more than five percent of the students required to test per the charter contract may be retested during the fall or spring assessment window.
Please see the MAP Assessment Requirements and Best Practices document for a full description of the retesting requirements and best practices.
14. Can the fall or spring test window be adjusted?
In order to establish an optimal environment for the collection of achievement and growth data, the Center utilizes NWEA’s instructional week defaults for test windows: four weeks of instruction prior to administration of the fall assessment, twenty weeks of instruction prior to winter test administration, and thirty-two weeks of instruction prior to spring test administration. Therefore, no changes can be made to the fall or spring window.
15. What is this new Master Calendar Reporting Requirement “Benchmark Assessment Progress Reports Certification”?
This submission was added to help our partner schools manage the state’s requirement to report the results of the legislatively-required benchmark assessments by the first meeting of the board in February 2023 and again by the last day of the 2022-2023 school year. The report must include the progress toward meeting the educational goals for all grades PK-12, with a transparency link on the school’s website. The results must be in the aggregate for all grade levels, subgroups, and instructional modes. Please see question #15 below for help with the instructional mode portion of this task. Once you have met these requirements, please certify you have done so via the Epicenter task due on February 28, 2023 and June 30, 2023.
16. How do I assign the instructional modes on the NWEA site to comply with the legislation?
Complete a Bulk Update or upload a Programs File indicating the primary mode in which students received instruction:
- Fully In-Person: Indicating students have received most of their instruction in-person/face-to-face format.
- Note: In-person students who were required to quarantine for portions of this year are still considered in-person since their primary mode of instruction was still face-to-face.
- Fully Remote: Indicating students have received most of their instruction remotely/virtually.
- Hybrid: Indicating students have received some of their instruction in-person and some remotely (e.g., half-day in-person and half-day remote, alternating one day in-person then one day remote, etc.)