Introducing TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards™

Not too long ago, the scenario for tests results in many states went something like this:

• A national test was selected by a school district.
• The tests were administered to students.
• The answer booklets were sent out for scoring.
• When the results came back:
  • Administrators looked at summary reports to see whether their districts were near, above, or below some national norm.
  • Labels with students’ scores were affixed to cumulative folders next to scores for other tests.
  • The rest of the reports were stored neatly away.

The test results were not useful for improving student learning. Several components of the teaching and learning cycle were missing, including: alignment of the tests to the curriculum and state academic content standards, access to test results by those working with students, and effective professional development programs to help educators interpret test results and use assessment information to review and adjust curriculum and instruction.

Measured Progress developed Progress Toward Standards assessments to fill those gaps in the teaching and learning cycle in several ways, including the following.

• Progress Toward Standards content is consistent with national curriculum standards. The standards-based design ensures that test items are focused on appropriate curricula for each grade. This tight relationship between grade-appropriate curricula and test content is one of the key advantages of using a standards-based test over traditional, norm-referenced instruments.
• Measured Progress conducts a study in each state to align Progress Toward Standards items with the state’s academic content standards.
• Progress Toward Standards reports clearly and accurately present the information that educators need to gauge students’ progress toward meeting state academic content standards.
• Measured Progress offers a series of professional development programs and other powerful resources and Products to support educators in using assessment results at every level of the educational system to improve student learning.

The Measured Progress and dataMetrics Software Partnership

Now, Measured Progress has added another powerful tool to the products it offers educators to gauge student progress toward meeting state academic content standards and use assessment information for instructional decisions.

Measured Progress has partnered with dataMetrics Software to offer TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards to schools, districts, and states. TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards allows educators to disaggregate and study test results in the ways that are most meaningful to them.

TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards

TestWiz™ is an easy-to-use, Windows-based program that allows educators to scan, score, and report on tests. Developed by Massachusetts-based dataMetrics Software, Inc., TestWiz has evolved over the past nine years in direct response to educators, who had many questions about their students’ test results and did not want to manually leaf through reams of paper reports. The software has been so well received that two states–Massachusetts and Michigan–have purchased statewide licenses, so that all their schools can use the software to disaggregate and study results from their annual state tests.

Now, dataMetrics Software and Measured Progress are working together to customize TestWiz into a powerful tool for educators to disaggregate and study the results of the Progress Toward Standards tests–TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards.

Here is how TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards works. Along with scoring and reporting services, educators can order a CD of their test results in electronic form. After installing TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards, they will use the “Import” module to quickly import each of the grades found on the CD.

Educators will then go into the “Print Reports” module and be able to answer questions such as

• Which students need help in math?
• Which students exceeded expectations in reading?
• How did the boys do compared with the girls?
• Were some items more problematic than others?
• Were some items related to specific state academic content standards answered incorrectly more than others?
• Is the class, as a whole, making progress toward meeting state academic content standards?
• Which individual students are having trouble with specific state academic content standards?

The user interface is friendly, while at the same time comprehensive.

In addition, TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards comes with a relational database. That means that educators can:

• create demographic fields and report results based on such variables as Free and Reduced Lunch, Title 1, After School Tutoring, etc. There are up to 30 fields for special codes;
• assign students to teachers and print class reports for those teachers (Students can be assigned to as many as 20 different teachers at a time); and
• enter or import results from classroom assessments or other tests and view results alongside the Progress Toward Standards test results. The software will match up records based on I.D. number or name and will even allow schools or districts to rematch students who were not matched during the initial import process.

For more information about TestWiz: Progress Toward Standards, the Progress Toward Standards program, or the other services and products Measured Progress offers to educators, call Measured Progress at 800-431-8901, ext. 2210, or visit our Web site.