exam

By Cynthia Schmeiser

The 2010 AP Fellows Program has been announced by the College Board. This grant is offered to finance (up to $1000) registration and expenses related to AP Summer Institute training AP teachers for the summer of 2010. Eligible teachers must work in a high school that has more than 50% ethnicity and/or 50% free/reduced-cost lunch eligibility. I’m counting over 120 such high schools in Michigan that would qualify. Deadline is February 15, 2010; visit http://professionals.collegeboard.com/k-12/awards/ap-grants/fellows

Because my home is minutes away from Spartan Stadium my loyalties lean green and white. As a Spartan fan we've learned to say "we're in a building year."

We'll as educators we've been saying our ACT scores have remained flat because the students taking the MME have not been held to the higher standards. We'll this year that all changes.

The Class of 2011 next March with take the MME. A significant number of them will have completed Algebra I, Geometry, and one semester of Algebra II. Plus they will have completed 2.5 years of English and science.

Let's hope that the ACT results reported next May say, "Michigan's average ACT show significant increase and now lead the nation." Shall we pray....

For a number of years headlines in local papers pronounced the failings of public and charter schools. When we worked so hard to put the ACT in place as our test, our critics concluded that we'll never be able to show improvement. They also said our averages would go down.

Well, not so.

This year, with 100% of our students taking the ACT we have growth --significant growth.

My Saturday morning paper had this headline: "Schools do well in state Merit Exam."

Our members and their teaching staff are seeing the means to get our students to the next step. Good job!

Dear Representative Bauer and Committee Members:

Today, Michigan Legislators are facing many difficult, unpopular
decisions. As high school principals who are put between ‘a rock and a hard place’ each day, we empathize with what you are going through.

In 1999, MASSP provided testimony to the Senate as to the critical need for an award system that would provide an incentive for students to take the HS MEAP. MASSP has not wavered in our support of the

Last spring MASSP members were asked, "If you were King/Queen for a day, what would you do with the MME and MEAP?" This information was shared with Senators Swialski and Jelinek. They must have been impressed by what they learned. There is a significant section in the Senate version of the School Aid Act dealing with assessment.

MASSP members took action last week explaining to legislators why EXPLORE is important for all students entering high school. Their work was successful!

The Senate embraced member support with the following in the Senate version of HB 4447:

"MEAP and Merit Exam Changes. The Senate added language prohibiting exam funding to be spent on an expanded social studies exam, pattern scoring, or any assessments developed by the Department for the purposes of Sections 1278a and 1278b of the Revised School Code. Intent language also was added that the Department replace its current MEAP for grades 3-8 with the Iowa Test or a similar exam, and the allocation was included for the "Explore" exam in grades 8 or 9. (Sec. 104 and 104b))"

The letter below was sent to the Michigan Legislature on June 17, 2009. In addition to the letter a fact sheet was enclosed (click here to download the fact sheet (DOC). The association notified association members of an ACTION ELERT on June 16th. Members were given sample letters and asked to send to their legislators.

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Dear Senator

We must do everything in our power to help Michigan students succeed in the real world.

May 14, 2009

This notice is intended exclusively for schools (public and nonpublic) that will administer the MEAP, MI-Access or MEAP-Access assessments in Fall 2009. If you are a nonpublic school and will NOT administer the MEAP, MI-Access or MEAP-Access in Fall 2009, please disregard this notice.

The accompanying documents contain important information regarding pre-identification of students and student counts for the Fall 2009 MEAP, MI-Access, and MEAP-Access assessments:

• Fall 2009 MEAP - Steps for Pre-ID and Student Counts
• MEAP Pre-ID Options
• Response Form for Fall 2009 MEAP Pre-ID Options
• Fall 2009 MI-Access - Steps for Pre-ID and Student Counts
• Fall 2009 MEAP-Access – Steps for Pre-ID and Student Counts

The association in its efforts to get support for universal use of EXPLORE is getting slimed by the Economic Educators with backdoor help from the Department of Education. After reading their appeal to stop MASSP's effort to shift funding from the 9th grade social studies test to EXPLORE you'd think that our executive director was in competition for the "meanest person in the world" award.

Here's what they had to say about our effort:

Members of the MCEE Board of Directors: