District leaders told the Manatee County School Board on Jan. 24 that midyear FAST math progress-monitoring data (PM2) show mixed results and that a test-item distribution issue heavily weighted toward fractions on the start of the third-grade assessment likely depressed early trajectories for many students.

"This, particular data set, Progress Monitor 2 for math, is a little more complex, really for 2 reasons," Superintendent Doctor Weisong told the board as he introduced the presentation, asking members to pose questions slide by slide for context. Deputy Superintendent Evan Jensen and Assessment and Research Director Mister McCarthy led a technical review of how computer-adaptive FAST testing works, testing windows and how the district is changing where accelerated students are tested.

Jensen and McCarthy explained two changes that affect comparisons with prior years: (1) the state FAST system uses private vendors (Cambium for most grades, Renaissance STAR for K–2) under a statewide contract and (2) the district changed which grade-level assessment accelerated students take so that students are tested on the standards they are being taught. "So we changed the the assessed, grades for some of these courses," Jensen said, noting that, for example, fourth-grade accelerated students now take the Grade 5 math test because their coursework covers fifth-grade benchmarks.

Staff emphasized how computer-adaptive tests set a student’s testing trajectory early: a student who misses early items tends to receive easier items as the adaptive engine narrows its estimate. McCarthy and Jensen told the board that question weighting and early-item sequencing can therefore have an outsized effect on a student’s estimate midtest and on PM2 results.

That technical point underpinned a central finding: third-grade PM2 showed an unusually high share of fraction items at the start of the test. McCarthy presented analyses of item distributions and wrote that while previous PM2 administrations had a mix of question types, "when we looked at this year's data, 98 percent of our students got a fractions question first." He and Jensen said most third-grade fraction instruction in the district occurs in the second semester, so many students were being assessed on content they had not yet learned.

Board members and staff discussed why that distribution matters. Jensen said early missed items on an adaptive test can be difficult for students to recover from and acknowledged the result made state comparisons noisier: "It's not intended to be used as a comprehensive evaluation of how the student's done in the course. We do see growth throughout the course of the year as the student acquires more content in class."

Staff also described math-acceleration changes rolled out during the FAST transition: the district is implementing accelerated elementary course codes (3A, 4A, 5A) and now assigns accelerated students to be assessed on the grade most closely aligned to their accelerated course. Jensen said this creates short-term noise in aggregate year-to-year charts because cohorts are tested on different grade-level forms, but staff argued the change gives clearer instructional feedback and better prepares students for later high-school coursework.

Staff outlined follow-up steps: principals and curriculum staff will use PM2 data to create targeted action plans, the district will schedule spring visits to schools with lower results, and the curriculum team will supply five-question formative checks aligned to specific benchmarks so teachers can reteach and re-check progress quickly. Jensen and McCarthy said they are querying the test vendor/Cambium to determine whether the third-grade question-distribution pattern was statewide or limited to certain administrations.

Ending: District staff told the board they will continue school-level support, request technical clarification from the vendor about third-grade item distributions, and bring school-specific action plans to spring visits.