Strengthening Achievement:
The Bangor School Department Assessment System
Bangor students continue to achieve at high levels 
The Bangor School Department has a long history of using assessment
data for the improvement of academic achievement, and our students have
been the direct beneficiaries of our efforts. Long before state and
federal mandates, Bangor teachers used data for instructional purposes,
constantly improving their instructional program, and consequently the
achievement of all students. Bangor students continue to outperform
their peers at both the state and national level on numerous measures,
and they are showing marked gains in our own locally designed
assessments. With a matriculation rate of 90% or greater for
Bangor High School graduating seniors and
two schools recognized as a National Schools of Excellence (BHS 2001, JFDS 2010) it is clear that our
fundamental philosophy of driving instruction through the use of data
continues to pay dividends.
The Bangor School Department Assessment System is a three-tiered
assessment system. This document provides a brief overview of that
system and of student achievement data at each level of assessment:
national, state and local. This information is invaluable
in giving us a better understanding of how well our various assessments
measure the performance of our students and strength of our programs,
and will continue to be used for both district level and school-based
planning purposes.
The
2008-2009 school year marked a change in Bangor's use of a
nationally-normed measure of student achievement as the TerraNova 3rd
Edition replaces the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) which no
longer is supported by its original publisher. The MAT had been part of
the assessment
landscape in Bangor since 1979, providing a
baseline of student achievement in grades two through ten. Data
generated from the administration of the TerraNova3 in early spring is used extensively in the development of
individualized
instructional plans, as well as for program evaluation, curriculum
planning, and continuous improvement planning through the School Core
Competency (SCC) Process.
While
the TerraNova3 provides valuable data, no test achieves perfect alignment
with our curriculum in all areas; however, a review of TerraNova3
content revealed strong matches to what students learn at all grade
levels. As the system continues to work with TerraNova3 data, the schools are eager to gauge
the performance of our students against their national peers at grades
2 through 10 in the areas of reading, language, mathematics, science,
and social studies.
State Assessment: The NECAP
In 2009, Maine joined the states of New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode
Island as a member of the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP)
to assess reading, writing, and mathematics in grades 3-8. Consequently, the NECAP content learning standards, known as Grade Level
Expectations (GLEs) were adopted by the state as Maine's federal accountability assessment. NECAP results
in reading and mathematics are used to certify achievement of these
standards as required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Unlike its predecessor the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA), the NECAP is administered over a three week period in the fall to assess learning from the previous academic year.
Local Assessments
For many years, the Bangor School Department has valued data from locally-administered assessments of student achievement to drive instruction. The 2010 implementation of the Treasures core literacy program (K-5) coincided with full adoption of the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System to continue Bangor's culture of purposeful reading instruction and assessment to foster literacy growth. Additionally, the district has developed its own common units in English / language arts at grades 6-12, a grammar assessment at the middle school level, a
district-wide writing prompt for students in grades two through seven,
and math “Must-Knows” assessments at grades 3, 5 and 7. Because we have
become more sophisticated with our assessment development over the
years, classroom teachers and school planning teams are increasingly dependent upon our local
data for the purpose of making decisions about instruction and programming.
