On report card: student's math achievement level

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction ADOPTS NEW MATH MEASURE TO BOOST STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Beginning this year, students receiving their end-of-grade and end-of-course score reports for mathematics will notice a new number beside their test grades. This new number reflects a Quantile measure and offers another way to gauge a student's math achievement level while also providing teachers and parents with an additional tool they can use to connect students with targeted instructional resources. The new number is a result of work the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction completed last year to link all statewide mathematics assessments to the Quantile Framework® for Mathematics.

The Quantile Framework was developed by MetaMetrics, an educational measurement organization based in Durham, and provides a common, developmental scale for measuring student mathematics achievement, the difficulty of mathematical skills and concepts, and the materials for teaching mathematics. By placing the curriculum, teaching materials and students on the same scale, Quantile measures enable teachers to describe which math skills and concepts a student is ready to learn and identify those that will require additional instruction so students can be matched with resources that meet their learning needs. North Carolina is one of four states currently using this framework.

Parents can use Quantile measures to support students' mathematical development by connecting them with targeted mathematics activities at home. Additional information about Quantile measures as well as resources including a math skills database, family-friendly math activities and a math textbook search tool, are available at www.quantiles.com.

Since 1996, North Carolina students in grades 3–8 have received a Lexile® measure for reading on their end-of-grade score reports. Last December, the NCDPI extended the availability of Lexile measures to ninth graders who took the English I end-of-course test. The NCDPI also joined with Gov. Bev Perdue last summer to promote the Lexile Find-a-Book online book database, available at http://www.lexile.com, to encourage students to use their Lexile scores to select books for summer reading.