Results from the spring 2015 Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) for mathematics and English language arts/literacy are being carefully rolled out. The steps in that process include:
Online Reporting System: Since mid-July, preliminary results have been available to schools/SAUs in the Online Reporting System (ORS) of the assessment portal at me.portal.airast.org. These reports have students placed as they were in the Test Information Distribution System (TIDE), and not necessarily aggregated according to Maine’s decision rules (e.g., exclusion of home-schooled students, outplaced students included with sending district, exclusion of students with special considerations). Access to these results is controlled by the permissions structure in TIDE, which allows for different levels of access. Permissions begin with the superintendent’s designation of a District/System Administrator (DSA). If administration changes have taken place which necessitate the assignment of a new DSA, the current superintendent needs to send an email identifying the designated DSA to the Department’s Bethany Dodge at bethany.l.dodge@maine.gov.
Please note that access to data in ORS will end on September 30, as Maine’s contract with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) will end on that date. We strongly suggest that schools/SAUs download a file of student data prior to that date.
iServices: On August 21, grade-level school/SAU reports and summary reports will be available in the Measured Progress secure website, iServices. Principals and superintendents should receive a communication from Measured Progress with log-in credentials soon. These reports will have the spring 2015 MEA data for mathematics and ELA/literacy aggregated according to Maine’s decision rules. Take note that these reports are confidential and not intended for public sharing. Data for public sharing must follow Maine’s suppression rules for small groups of students. The data presented in iServices will not have small-group data suppressed. The reports are intended for those educators who need access to the data for educational purposes.
Data Review Period: Schools will have 10 business days to review their MEA mathematics and ELA/literacy reports prior to the public release of data by the Maine DOE. School-level data should be reviewed for accuracy and any major issues should be reported to the Department’s Nancy Godfrey at nancy.godfrey@maine.gov. As in past years, the Maine DOE uses the student coding as it existed in Infinite Campus State Edition. Inaccuracies related to student coding at the local level cannot be corrected at this point.
Public Release of Data: Data from the 2015 MEA for mathematics and ELA/literacy will be publicly released to the press and reports will be posted in the Maine Data Warehouse on September 8, barring any unexpected delays.
Student Reports and Labels: On the same date that public data are released, Measured Progress will ship paper copies of individual student reports and student reporting labels directly to schools. Schools will be responsible for distributing student reports to parents/guardians as soon as possible, but no later than September 22. Reporting labels are intended to remain with school records.
For more information or questions, contact the Maine DOE’s Nancy Godfrey at nancy.godfrey@maine.gov or Charlene Tucker at charlene.tucker@maine.gov.