Because of difficulties securing contracts for work that must be completed before the ABCs results can be determined, ABCs results for the K-8 schools will be released on or before November 15 rather than on October 5 as originally
planned.
Preparing the annual ABCs accountability results involves local education agencies (LEAs), the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and, sometimes, outside vendors employed to do specific analyses and other tasks. Thisyear, with the new K-8 mathematics end-of-grade assessments, two contractors were employed to do a number of tasks. These tasks include generating the developmental scale for grades three through eight, equating the current year’s scores to previous editions of the tests and recommending achievement level cut scores and descriptors for the new tests. This work must be completed before DPI can run the ABCs formulas and determine the ABCs status of individual schools.
Difficulties in securing contracts with the vendors doing the mathematics assessments’ analyses have made it technically unfeasible to have the ABCs report for K-8 schools completed by October 5 the scheduled release date. Based on where work is at this point, the ABCs results for K-8 schools will be prepared on or before November 15. The State Board of Education has agreed to hold a special called meeting as soon as the K-8 results are prepared so that results can be approved as quickly as possible.
This does not affect ABCs results for high schools, and those results will be released on schedule on October 5.
The State Board of Education will discuss the timing for dispersing the ABCs incentive awards at its September meeting.
For more information, please call the Communications division, 919-807-3450.