State of New Jersey Department of Education
NJ Home | Services A to Z | Departments/Agencies | FAQs
Search:
NJPEP Home > Workshops > Classroom Assessment > Before the first day

Classroom Assessment

picture of students1. Before the First Day of Class.
      What do you know about your students? How can you find out?

[review the PowerPoint version of this page]

Resource -
what it can tell you?

Where to find it -
what does it look like?
Statewide assessment results
A. A statewide assessment reports gives an overview of how grade bands are performing in the state.
* It gives you a standard for comparison.		 In DOE data (see example), click on * NJ Statewide Assessment Reports to obtain summary reports. NOTE: be sure you are looking at the correct academic year!

B. Reports for your school and your district (aggregated) to compare your school proficiencies, by content area, with the district, districts with similar DFG status (there are 7 criteria), and the state.
* It gives you a standard for comparison within your district and outside of it.

In DOE data, click on * NJ School Report Card and then on New Jersey School Report Card.
- Select School Type, and then choose your school.
- To see aggregated school student scores, click on the radio button next to Student Performance Indicators and then click on See your data selections.
- You will see a performance indicator page (see example).
- Click on details to obtain school subgroup data by testing year and content area (see example). NOTE: scroll down the page to obtain the most recent years!

Compare your school results with those of other schools
C. Compare your school test scores with others with 2 criteria: similar [or worse] poverty and ELL levels.
* NOTE 1: for more detail, check out "Selection Criteria" above each table or graph in Just4theKids.
* NOTE 2: The schools on the list may be good resources for you to ask for assistance to increase your scores (or for you to provide help!). 		Find information in web sites such as:
* Just4theKids_NJhome. On the Find a School line, decide on Elementary, Middle or High. Next, select your school. Choose a gray tab (Opportunity Gap Bars, Top Comparable Schools, or Multi-Year Summary) and then select Language Arts, Mathematics or Science.
* Standard & Poors. Select your state, then select school or district. Click on sort by (at the top of the columns) to see how the schools within your district compare. Then select the school of interest.
   Now check out the choices on the left of the screen. Under Search & Comparison Tools choose Compare Schools. Use the sort by and the Quick Select features and then check the boxes next to schools you want to select. Then click on (top left of table) to obtain very detailed data. (You can save it into an Excel file.) Make sure you read "For more information on how to use benchmarking to improve performance."
   Experiment with the other tools in the left column!
Your school and your district
D. For NJ ASK only (for now): view, compare, and report relative performance trends among subgroups in your district and school.

* Standard & Poors. Select your state, then select school or district. Click on sort by (at the top of the columns) to see how the schools within your district compare. Then select the school of interest.
Your class
E. Additional district and school assessments Terra Nova (see example) and others.
* NOTE: Terra Nova is a norm-referenced test, where the NJ statewide assessments are criterion-referenced tests. See Norm- and Criterion-Referenced Testing by Linda Bond (1996), Research & Evaluation, 5(2).
F. Previous teacher reports Is there an official form in your school or district?

G. Report card (aggregated for the class)
* NOTE: If the ISRs are aggregated for your class, you could find:
  - how each student scores, for each cluster in a single content area (see example), or
  - the knowledge range of each cluster (see example)
in the class.

Individual Student Report (ISR) - an example for just one student - and see more information about ISRs.
H. Anecdotal information Word of mouth.
* NOTE: Be careful of setting up "expectations."
I. First language Levels of language proficiency & NJDOE Approved Language Proficiency Tests.
J. Other IEPs, and other information.