Brace Yourselves: New MEAP Scores Go Public Today

Macomb Township parents could be in for a bit of a shock today when the Michigan Department of Education releases local schools’ 2011 MEAP results reflecting the state's new cut scores.

In September 2011, the in an effort to better measure “career-and college-ready achievement standards.” Cut scores refer to the results used by schools to determine whether a student is advanced, proficient, partially proficient or not proficient in certain subjects.

When the MDE released a “retrospective look” in November 2011 at how students would have fared on past MEAP exams if the new scoring standards had been in place, none of Macomb Township’s public school districts escaped the statewide decline in proficiency levels.

"We have to be honest with ourselves about where we are in preparing our kids for the reality of today’s global economy,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan, i. “These updated scores, while they may be difficult to accept, will help lead Michigan forward. Just looking good is not better than being good.”

Considered more "rigorous" than previous standards, new cut scores require students to get roughly 65 percent of the answers correct to “pass” the MEAP, instead of the previous benchmark of only 39 percent.

In the "retroactive look" applied to its 2010 MEAP scores, Chippewa Valley saw some of its biggest declines in math and science. Under the former cut scores, 80-90 percent of students were proficient in these subjects, but the new scores dropped these proficiences to the low 30s in math and as low as 11 percent in eighth-grade science.

To view 2010 retroactive scores for all Macomb Township's school districts, .

State education officials maintain that the new cut scores are a better measure of how well schools are preparing students for success at the next grade level and whether students are progressing at the rate necessary to ensure they are career- and college-ready upon high school graduation.

Along with the scores released today, the MDE will also post past MEAP tests that have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the new cut scores to allow for year-by-year comparison.

Visit Patch later today to view the 2011 MEAP scores for Macomb Township's four districts: Chippewa Valley, L'Anse Creuse, New Haven and Utica.