Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

I am not an active member of the Wrangell Landless, having stepped away in the year 1996. On August 1, 2015, I formally submitted my Letter of Resignation as an Officer of Wrangell Landless, as apparently I was incorrectly listed as such in 1996.

Carol Snoddy

To the Editor:

It has been a great autumn in Wrangell. The change in the leaves represents a movement from summer into fall and an associated extracurricular activity movement out of cross-country season into wrestling and basketball. This also represents an example of seasonal change.

On the education side of what happens in our schools, last spring we changed the state assessment administered within the Wrangell Public School District (WPSD). Alaska, like most states, is in the process of aligning teaching methods and the associated content that is taught to new Standards for Mathematics and Language Arts. These standards were adopted by the Alaska State Board of Education in 2012 and are available for viewing in the WPSD Central Office. Although these standards belong to Alaska, they are very similar (roughly ninety-five percent similar) to the standards used throughout districts in the lower 48 states.

The WPSD has posted an amazing performance on the former state test called the “Standards Based Assessment,” or SBA. This exam was based on the old standards and the last year this test was administered was in spring 2014. The WPSD regularly posted four and five star ratings based on the SBA, which were among the highest in the state. This can be attributed to the excellent instructional staff employed within the WPSD.

The test that was administered last spring for the first time was based on the new Alaska Standards, which were adopted in 2012. This test is called the Alaska Measure of Progress or AMP for short. This is unarguably a much more difficult test than the former SBA. The new assessment is based on college and career readiness and the results from the AMP are in no way comparable to the results from the SBA. This is a very important distinction between the two tests.

There is widespread belief from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) that test scores will significantly drop statewide beginning with soon-to-be-released scores from the spring 2015 AMP. This mirrors a nationwide drop in test scores based on districts that are testing to their own new state standards. The Alaska scores, including those for the Wrangell Public School District, are due to be released to the public sometime after October 19, 2015, according to DEED.

Having said all of this, the AMP scores really will not give us much in the way of information to tell us how we can change instruction based on what the standards define in the way of content. We will need to rely on other assessments such as the Measure of Academic Progress, or MAP, to assist us in gauging how Wrangell’s students compare to other students across the nation and in Alaska.

In the end it should be remembered that ,while we still haven’t seen the AMP results, this assessment only represents one piece of academic information. If the State of Alaska continues to use the AMP for our state assessment, I have no doubt that our test scores will improve over time, regardless of where they begin.

Patrick V. Mayer, Superintendent

Wrangell Public Schools