MAC Meeting Minutes July 2006
Missouri Assessment Consortium
Meeting notes - July 14, 2006
The meeting was held at the DHE offices in Jefferson City. Jeremy Kintzel hosted. Dave Oehler served as historian. Attendees/participants: Mike Grelle, Pat Gillman, Ron Pennington, Delores Honey, Janet Juhlin, Chris Frazier, Sue Pieper, Rick Axelson, Dave Oehler, Rick Mihalevich.
1:15 Welcome, introductions, agenda preview
1:16 CBHE News and Notes
In the next week or so there will be more details on the process for finding an interim Commissioner. There will also be a search for a permanent replacement. Other retirements/vacancies have been Teala Sipes, John Wittstruck, Wei Zhou.
The DHE anticipates being able to hire more staff.
Jeremy provided a URL to a document form the Governor's Office which is a compilation of data from various sources on math and science in Missouri. It is at: http://www.gov.mo.gov/mets/metsleader.pdf.
One DHE project is working with other agencies to create an integrated data system. For example, tracking students through K-12, higher education, and into employment. Issues are currently being identified and explored. There is a lot of interest in making the MOSIS system a two-way data exchange between K-12 and higher education.
The Enhanced Missouri Student Achievement Study will probably be revised to include additional fields for submitting to DESE for the MOSIS project. MOSIS data ideally would be fed back to institutions through the data sharing project spring reports.
The revised high school core curriculum is posted on the DHE website. One science credit has been added, as well as notations on other high school requirements. The new high school requirements will be effective for high school graduates beginning spring 2010. DESE is also putting together a focus group to talk about electronic high school transcripts. Please let Jeremy know if you'd like to be involved in that group, or in discussions of revisions to higher education admissions policies.
The discussion of using ACT as the high school junior assessment (in place of MAP) may turn to other options instead. Illinois did so and was recently questioned by the feds because the junior grade level expectations didn't match the ACT parameters.
2:25 CLA/Value-Added and policy Updates
There will be a Missouri institution conference call to plan for the 2006-07 CLA negotiations.
This past year a bill was proposed in the legislature that would mandate that "performance measures" (for example normed assessments of general education) be required for some higher education funding. It did not pass, but a similar bill might be proposed again this year.
MAC would like to see some policies put forward that are more inclusive of other nationally normed tests.
Should the focus be on adding value, or students meeting minimal competencies? Should an assessment plan include (a) some measure of value added, (b) some nationally normed assessment including comparative data, (c) some evidence of meeting threshold competencies, (d) evidence that the faculty use outcomes data to drive improvement?
Mike Grelle will head a subgroup to review prior MAC documents and forward a position paper to the Value-Added Consortium. Members include Pat Gillman, Delores Honey, Janet Juhlin, Chris Frazier, Sue Pieper, and Jeremy Kintzel. The workgroup (above individuals plus any other MAC members interested) should look at existing documents and use the listserv to pre-discuss ideas. There will be a working meeting September 8 at CMSU beginning at 10:00 . We will work until Delores says we're done.
3:10 Goal-Setting/Planning
See above.
3:14 Professional Development - Vocabulary builders
Ullage - the unfilled portion of a bottle (for example the empty space in a wine bottle). Can be used as "The ullage in his head."
3:15 Adjournment
Next meeting date: September 8, 2006.
Next meeting host: Mike Grelle will host the meeting. A historian may be needed.
Agenda for next meeting:
- Develop document(s) for the Value-Added Consortium
Future agenda items:
- Focus areas for Assessment Showcase next spring (current plans call for CMSU's Assessment Showcase to be held on Friday, November 10, 2006 in Warrensburg). November 10 is also the last day of the MidAIR conference which will be held from Nov 8 to Nov 10 in Columbia.
- Standards for Reporting
- Enrollment - dual credit, frozen file census data, end of year
