District presents winter assessment overview: Acadience, NWEA MAP and i‑Ready show incremental gains

At a March 24 board meeting, the Shawnee Mission School District’s assessment leaders gave a high-level summary of midyear results from Acadience (early-literacy probes), NWEA MAP (adaptive growth assessments) and the new i‑Ready math diagnostic used this year in grades 6–8.

“Low and slow,” Director of Assessment and Research Dr. David Grama said, stressing that the district’s strategy favors incremental, sustainable gains rather than year-to-year spikes. He summarized midyear Acadience and MAP distributions and showed two years of improvement in Acadience numeracy benchmarks and modest, steady movement in MAP RIT averages.

Pam Lewis, associate superintendent of leadership and learning, described how the district uses “lag” measures (end-of-year results) and “lead” measures (frequent progress monitoring) to guide interventions and instruction. “We assess students at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year and the end of the year,” Lewis said, adding that students receiving supplemental instruction are monitored more frequently.

The presentation compared winter NWEA MAP math results with the i‑Ready diagnostic for grades 6–8. Grama reported correlation coefficients between the two assessments of roughly 0.80–0.86 — a strong statistical relationship — and showed scatterplots that clustered closely along regression lines. The district administered both tests this year so it could compare the new i‑Ready diagnostic to its historical MAP data.

Why it matters: Acadience numeracy showed measurable gains year‑to‑year in early grades (an increase in students meeting benchmark), and MAP results indicate the district’s students continue to score above national norms on average. The i‑Ready data’s strong correlation with MAP suggests i‑Ready can provide a usable diagnostic tied directly to the adopted math curriculum, but the district is still weighing whether to keep both instruments in its assessment footprint.

Implementation questions remain. The i‑Ready diagnostic connects directly to instructional resources and provides near‑real‑time personalization; MAP is resource-agnostic and supports long-term longitudinal comparisons. District leaders told trustees they are still evaluating whether to continue using both tools once contract timelines and instructional priorities are aligned.

Ending: District leaders said they will continue to expand i‑Ready professional learning, monitor student progress with lead and lag measures, and return to the board with follow-up recommendations about the assessment footprint and how the district will balance diagnostic precision with comparability to historical and statewide measures.