Subject: Math
Grade Level(s): 3 – 8
Measures Growth: Yes
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Achievement Network is a system of regular assessment in ELA and math for students in grades 3-8. Every six to eight weeks, schools administer two ANet assessments—one in ELA and one in Math. Each assessment takes place during one regular classroom period and tests recently taught material. The assessments are intended to identify individual areas of need and inform instruction and intervention strategies.
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking
Cons: Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: Difficult to administer • Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • It is hard to use the data
ANet, when used as a predictor for the State MCAS is often far more rigorous than anything students will need to do. I find the data is returned quickly and presented very clearly, but often it's not useful because some of the questions can be miscategorized, or build in multiple grade level standards so that in looking at the data, one may not be able to tease out the concept/skill that students are struggling with in particular.
Submitted by Addis in Massachusetts on May 17, 2013
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
ANET is not at all aligned to curriculum. Tests are administered at odd intervals. On the whole, the test has interfered with achievement rather than promoted it.
Submitted by James in Massachusetts on February 15, 2013
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
ANET assessments can be useful but also frustrating. Growth of students over the course of a year is difficult to measure as the material on the assessments changes throughout the year. The data does not necessarily help with reflecting on my practice but rather what students have learned or not learned.
Submitted by Bruce in Massachusetts on April 5, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level
Cons: Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Great way to see where changes in instruction may be needed for some students.
Submitted by Telesa in Tennessee on March 31, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: It is hard to use the data
Wealth of data is great but it can be hard to parse/the website is not great.
Submitted by Kelsey in Massachusetts on March 29, 2012
Pros: Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
Cons: It is hard to use the data
The concept behind these assessments is logical since they are designed to assess the new Common Core Standards.
Our school has piloted the new Second Grade Interim Math Assessments.
At the initial meeting in August, we were informed that there were no supplementary guides to assist with teaching the standards which would be assessed. All of the other grades did have review materials available to them online.
On the first two assessments, there were many questions which were not worded appropriately for second grade children. The third assessment showed much improved test questions.
The greatest difficulty has been that the ANet assessments are not following our district's scope and sequence. I feel like I am "testing to the test."
I will conclude with a comment spoken by many second grade parents - assessing children at this level is inconclusive due to their ages and the degree of learning differences at this grade level.
Submitted by Constance in District of Columbia on March 1, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Does not assess higher-order thinking
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly
ANet is a great assessment tool in terms of quick turn around and usable data. However, over the course of the last couple of years, there have been a handful of times where we have found questions that were poorly worded, confusing, misleading, or graded incorrectly. ANet is helpful in that it provides data quarterly, concluding with a final evaluation. This allows both students and teachers to track growth over time. However, as with most other standardized testing systems, ANet is only a small portion of the picture of the capabilities of each student and should be used along with a portfolio of other types of assessments. I've found it helpful to take the assessment prior to administering it so that I can identify potential pitfalls and know how to address questions following administration. Additionally, though the tests themselves are reasonable in terms of length, administering them quarterly can take up invaluable instructional time. Overall, ANet is one of the most successful standardized testing systems I've seen available for schools to use, though I think the weight of importance of such tests also needs to be considered.
Submitted by Katie in District of Columbia on February 29, 2012
Cons: Not aligned to the standards I teach • Does not assess higher-order thinking • Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly
Cons: Doesn't help me track my students' learning gains over time • Is not helpful to my professional growth as a teacher
A Net sounds like a great idea. However, A Net doesn't work if it isn't aligned to the scope and sequence that you are using. There is no point in testing students on skills in mathematics that they haven't learned yet and getting data back that says they don't know something. Also, the question banks are very poor and often say they are testing a standard that they really aren't. Because the question banks are written in isolation, they often don't match the well crafted questions like MCAS math. This leads to many teachers teaching to A Net questions to get higher scores. It is a vicious cycle. I read the earlier reviews that were positive and I could see A Net being positive if it was aligned to the scope and sequence of a district, if questions were chosen by teams of teachers, and if it actually helped you plan for the upcoming weeks of instruction. For example, if A Net assessed content already learned and some did some pre assessment of upcoming content, then a teacher would have valuable data at his/her fingertips.
Submitted by Lee in Massachusetts on February 21, 2012
Pros: Assesses higher-order thinking
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly
The greatest thing about the Achievement Network is the support they provide schools in creating a data-driven culture.
Last year, the average score of our students over all four ANet interim tests were a very good predictor for how they scored on the DC-CAS.
The test includes a BCR, but must be scored by teachers.
Submitted by Caryn in District of Columbia on February 18, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
ANET has been useful for my teaching, especially helping me focus more on standards I'm supposed to cover. It certainly helps students be ready for the MCAS.
Submitted by David in Massachusetts on February 13, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses higher-order thinking • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level • Takes students too long to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
The ANET math assessment is a rigorous assessment that provides very useful data that can help inform teaching. This assessment is aligned to the standards and the data provided breaks down each question by standard. It would be even more useful if the assessment measured each standard to mastery, however, any assessment that does this would be very long and tedious for students.
Submitted by Kylie in District of Columbia on January 24, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
The Math Anet is an easy to administer test that provides valuable benchmarking data. Additionally, the company is very flexible and willing to work with individual schools to tailor their assessments to your curriculum needs. The Anet is given quarterly at my school and we were able to have test designers align each exam to where we should be in the curriculum. The only downside is that this test tests a limited number of grade-level standards, thus does not provide as much data on those who are performing significantly below grade level.
Submitted by Emily in Massachusetts on January 22, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Cons: Misses growth of some students, such as those far below and/or far above grade level
Pros: Results returned quickly • Data is presented clearly
The assessment helps students to practice for the DCCAS and is aligned to state and common core standards. The only downside is that if students are functioning significantly below grade-level the assessment accurately measure growth.
Submitted by Allison in District of Columbia on January 21, 2012
Pros: Aligned to the standards I teach • Assesses a range of students, including those from far below to far above grade level • Takes students a reasonable amount of time to complete
Pros: Easy to administer • Results returned quickly • Helps me track my students' learning gains over the course of the school year • Data is presented clearly • Data I receive helps me understand where I am teaching well and where I need to improve
We\'ve worked with ANet for years. Their team has helped us think through our students\' individual and collective performance on standards-aligned, periodic assessments (5 or 6 before the state tests in May). Student performance and subskills assessed on each item guide the rigor of our daily lessons and scope and sequence. The timely turnaround with student, school, and network data on their user-friendly website allows us to make quick changes to curriculum or pull together groups of students for interventions. If your school has the opportunity to sign on to the network, do it.
Submitted by Timothy in Massachusetts on January 19, 2012
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