The Alaska Measures of Progress (AMP) results are now public. Clearly, the results across the State and KPSBD are lower than what we are used to seeing from the old Standards Based Assessment. While there are many reasons for this, ultimately we are using the results as an opportunity to improve. In prior years, there has been a focus on basic skills and getting students “over the bar”. The new standards and assessment have changed expectations for public education as a whole. Our students regularly get opportunities to apply their knowledge and work on problem solving. Now, that has become the focus for our students through the new standards and assessment. I believe in raising the bar for public education and a renewed focus on an individual students’ growth. Life beyond the K-12 world has very high expectations and our system is rising to those expectations. We have our baseline measure in place and once AMP provides detailed information for instructional decision-making, we believe this can help provide a clearer learning path for each of our students.
AMP is not the only measure we use to help chart a student’s learning path. It is something that the state does use to define a school’s performance rating so there is a sense of it being “high stakes” for our staff and communities. Our district will be very involved in the future development of any statewide assessment, including possible refinements to AMP, to ensure that reporting is timely and accurate with enough detail for instructional decision-making to help students along their learning pathway. This may take some time, but we have many pieces in place, including a dedicated, professional staff, that will continue to provide a quality educational experience for all of our students as they prepare for their future.
AMP update
The Alaska Measures of Progress (AMP) results are now public. Clearly, the results across the State and KPSBD are lower than what we are used to seeing from the old Standards Based Assessment. While there are many reasons for this, ultimately we are using the results as an opportunity to improve. In prior years, there has been a focus on basic skills and getting students “over the bar”. The new standards and assessment have changed expectations for public education as a whole. Our students regularly get opportunities to apply their knowledge and work on problem solving. Now, that has become the focus for our students through the new standards and assessment. I believe in raising the bar for public education and a renewed focus on an individual students’ growth. Life beyond the K-12 world has very high expectations and our system is rising to those expectations. We have our baseline measure in place and once AMP provides detailed information for instructional decision-making, we believe this can help provide a clearer learning path for each of our students.
AMP is not the only measure we use to help chart a student’s learning path. It is something that the state does use to define a school’s performance rating so there is a sense of it being “high stakes” for our staff and communities. Our district will be very involved in the future development of any statewide assessment, including possible refinements to AMP, to ensure that reporting is timely and accurate with enough detail for instructional decision-making to help students along their learning pathway. This may take some time, but we have many pieces in place, including a dedicated, professional staff, that will continue to provide a quality educational experience for all of our students as they prepare for their future.
