Putting Children First
New York City Public Schools' Periodic Assessments
Acuity™ Assessment Management System
The Acuity assessment program selected by the New York City Department
of Education (DOE) for periodic assessments consists of three core
components designed to work together to provide powerful instructional
information to NYC teachers. Acuity's in-depth reports will help
educators understand how each student is performing and identify
core areas for improvement. Teachers can spend time where it is
needed most—on instruction and learning.
Acuity Offers NYC Schools Choices
It's all about choices. Periodic assessments are designed to provide
timely and detailed information on student strengths and weaknesses,
as well as progress over time, to teachers, parents, and students.
This assessment data will help NYC schools better target and differentiate
classroom instruction, identify and share effective practices, and
plan related professional development. Schools will be able to choose
the Periodic Assessments that are most relevant for their students'
learning needs and receive professional development in making the
most meaningful instructional use of these tools.
Go to:
Predictive Assessments
The Acuity assessment program includes two Predictive Assessments
for grades 3-12. These assessments mirror the content and test format
of the New York State exams. They are aligned to the content structure
of the New York State testing program blueprints but will target
instruction appropriate for the time of the administration. The
Predictive Assessments will thus cover a broad range of content,
as do the state assessments. These assessments will be administered
in the fall and spring.
Benefit: Educators will be able to readily identify the forecast
of how their students will do on the New York State tests. They
can then design appropriate instructional interventions to move
all students forward. These Predictive Assessments can also be used
as a diagnostic tool to measure student performance growth within
a school year and across school years.
Instructionally Targeted Assessments (ITA's)
The Acuity assessment program includes a menu of ITA's for grade(s)
3-12 in ELA and Math developed to reflect the NYC commonly used
scope-and-sequence and curriculum maps. The ITA's are designed to
mirror the instruction near the time of administration.
Benefit: These ITA's provide educators a deeper understanding of
students' performance and diagnose specific learning skills that
may need remediation. Educators obtain test results enabling them
to identify individual student's needs and create instructional
groupings for further instruction.
- Assess what is taught, when it is taught
- Know which standards are most and least understood in the classrooms
- Quickly adjust instruction based on informative reports
Customized Item Bank Assessments
Acuity includes an item bank of over 20,000 questions aligned to
New York State standards. If educators prefer to develop their own
customized classroom assessments, they have the ability to choose
questions out of the bank based on their own criteria.
- Allows educators to create their own custom assessments by selecting
items and length
- Enables educators to intervene early, often, and effectively
- By creating custom assessments from the item bank, educators
can assess and reinforce specific areas of learning and create
assessments that are targeted to the particular needs of their
classroom.
Aligned Instructional Exercises
Acuity includes a series of personalized instructional materials
which guide and assist teachers in improving students' mastery of
subject matter. These instructional exercises are aligned to NYC
standards to complement classroom lesson plans. They can be electronically
assigned to a class as a whole, or can be assigned individually
to students to reflect the unique areas where students may require
additional instruction. This allows teachers and support staff to
customize assignments to the individual student without requiring
significant additional workload.
- Improve student achievement in key areas with targeted activities
- Intervene in time to make a difference on achievement
- Allows teachers to develop unique instructional strategies to
address the specific needs of their students
Informative and Actionable Reports
Acuity's detailed reports provide instructional information in
a clear, easy-to-understand format. Available online and in PDF,
Acuity's reports can be viewed at multiple levels (e.g. student,
class, school) and filtered by demographic categories. The report
format allows educators to create instructional groups within their
classrooms.
Acuity Reports enable users to drill down for deeper understanding,
and each report is designed to meet specific educational needs.
For example, the student Item Analysis report shows where a student
is experiencing difficulty, and possible reasons why, so teachers
can intervene most effectively. Class Assessment reports provide
teachers with actionable data on how their class is doing relative
to required State standards and allows educators to design unique
lessons targeting students' needs.
Types of Reports:
- Standards-based Performance and Growth
- Roster
- Item Analysis
- AYP (subgroups)
- Longitudinal Growth
Detailed Sample Reports are available in the NYC Acuity
Reports Brochure
Download
Brochure (1.6MB | PDF)
Professional Development for Educators Ties Everything
Together
The power of the Acuity assessment program could go unrecognized
without comprehensive professional development targeted to NYC educators,
administrators, and school support staff. CTB/McGraw-Hill, in collaboration
with DOE, has developed a detailed professional development program
specifically for educators.
A series of school-centric workshops will focus on guiding NYC
educators to use the data available within the reports and the targeted
instructional activities to design lessons and target each student's
unique learning needs.
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