CASE STUDY | MEASURES OF ACADEMIC PROGRESS (MAP)
Panhandle, Independent School District, Texas
A high-performing district uses data to ensure growth for every student
The town motto, “People of Pride and Purpose,” greets visitors as they enter Panhandle, a northern Texas town surrounded by
thousands of acres of farms and ranches. In a town of 2,000, one-third of the population is school-age children, and all attend
Panhandle elementary (pre-K – 5), junior high (6 – 8), or high school. The Panhandle Panthers compete in a variety of sports,
and school pride is in evidence, from the packed crowds at Friday night Panhandle Panther football games to businesses like the
Panther Barbershop and Panther Pizza.
Panther pride stems in large part from the Panhandle Independent School District’s academic rigor. The district’s schools, which sit
grouped together in a small campus on the edge of town, have consistently ranked among the highest-achieving in the state. In the
last two school years, however, that status has skyrocketed. Since 2011, Panhandle Elementary School—out of 4,000 elementary
schools in the state—moved up 50 places in the state ranking system to become the 29th highest-rated elementary school in Texas.
Exploring the Benefits of
Adaptive Assessment
In 2011, Panhandle ISD began using Measures of Academic
Progress® (MAP®) and MAP for Primary Grades (MPG)
interim assessments. With over 80% of their students
meeting proficiency, educational leaders wanted to use
MAP data to illuminate the learning needs of their highperforming students so teachers could focus on enrichment
activities. But soon they began to explore the multiple
benefits MAP provides. Within two years they had expanded
their MAP use to cover four measurement needs.
1. As a Universal Screener
“We’re a high-performing school,” says Panhandle ISD
Superintendent Blair Brown. “And our students have always
done well on state tests. But we found in our data that our
Tier 1 students were regressing back to the mean on the bell
curve. We were doing a good job with the lower-performing
students and the students on the bubble but we weren’t
doing a good job with our higher-performing students.”
Doug Rawlins, principal of Panhandle Elementary, adds, “If
all of your focus is on Tier 3 and that’s where 20% of your
kids are, and 80% of your kids are on or above grade level,
then your focus is wrong. So we began to pay attention to
those high-achieving students. They are in a whole different
mode, and they’re the ones who require the hardest work.”
With a focus on identifying their Gifted and Talented
students, Panhandle began using MAP and MPG as a
screener before classes started in August so that enrichment
could begin as soon as the school year began. Initially they
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A high-performing district uses data to ensure growth for every student
®
Since 2011, Panhandle Elementary
School moved up 50 places in the
state ranking system to become the
29th highest-rated school in Texas,
out of 4,000 elementary schools.
used the assessment as a screener for K – 5 students;
the following year they expanded their use to students in
grades K – 11.
2. As a Tool to Differentiate Instruction for
Tier 2 and 3
In the process of screening and defining students’ tiers
with MAP, the district learned from their data that there
were instructional needs to be addressed in all grade levels.
Because MAP reports provide a breakdown of student
performance within specific goal strands, they were learning
new things about their Tier 2 and 3 students. Says Brown,
“We were excited about the data we were getting. Because
we know how to get those struggling kids up—we’re good
at that. But seeing that breakdown of student performance
data on MAP reports was one of the best things we did. We
could never do that before we had MAP.”
Panhandle now uses MAP data for differentiated instruction,
small group instruction, specific intent instruction, Tier 2
intervention, Special Education interventions, and tutoring
for students performing below grade level. “NWEA got us to
focus on every student’s needs,” Rawlins says, “just because
of the way MAP was designed.”
3. As a Complement to Digital Learning Tools
The district embraced the concept of digital learning
platforms years before they began using MAP. But, says
Brown, “I had never seen the effectiveness until we had an
assessment tool that identified what was happening with
each kid.”
Today students at Panhandle ISD spend 20-30 minutes
every day on digital platforms that integrate with MAP,
including Study Island™ and Compass Odyssey®. Scores
from MAP assessment—including detailed breakdowns of
goal and sub-goal areas—are used as a guide for digital
learning, so each student is working on their specific area
of need.
“The reason we love MAP is because it fits seamlessly,” says
Brown. “It works together with some of our digital platforms
to create learning paths. And our teachers have really gotten
excited because of the integration. It fills in the gaps. They
can really see what the kids are seeing, and it gives them
ideas of how to better relate it in class.”
4. As Means of Reducing Test-Taking Time
and Resources
Since integrating MAP into Panhandle ISD, school leaders
have discovered another benefit of using an efficient, multipurpose adaptive assessment: instructional time saved.
“We screen to make sure we don’t miss kids’ needs,” Rawlins
explains. “We don’t want to miss our gifted kids, and we
don’t want to miss our high needs children. So we had a
multitude of different tests. To identify pre-reading and
pre-primer needs with our kindergarten, first- and secondgraders we were actually using four different tests.”
In past years, testing at Panhandle ISD required the hiring
of many substitute teachers to facilitate testing sessions,
but the efficiency of MAP testing has eliminated that need.
The district saves on the cost of administering tests, and
teachers get back the instructional time lost to multiple
testing sessions.
“Because of MAP, we are beginning to scale back on the
number of tests we give,” says Rawlins. “It took us a couple
of years to really figure out where MAP fit in. But now we
are beginning to see that MAP takes the place of a lot of
other tests.”
Making 100% Proficiency
and Moving Forward
With their spring 2014 state assessment behind them,
Panhandle Panthers have a new source of pride: based
on their latest test scores, for the first time, 100% of the
students in 5th grade at Panhandle ISD are proficient in
math and reading.
“It takes good principals,” says Brown. “It takes great
teachers. And we’re fortunate here to have real good kids.”
He adds, “We are still learning about all the things MAP can
do for us, but our teachers have bought in and they love it.
I’m just proud of them.”
Learn more about MAP at NWEA.org/MAP.
Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) has nearly 40 years of experience helping educators move student learning
forward through computer-based assessment suites, professional development offerings, and research services.
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A high-performing district uses data to ensure growth for every student
®
©Northwest Evaluation Association 2014. All rights reserved. Measures of Academic Progress, MAP, and Partnering to Help All Kids Learn are
registered trademarks and Northwest Evaluation Association, and NWEA are trademarks of Northwest Evaluation Association.
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