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After at least one school mistakenly sent out erroneous student achievement results to parents last week, the Michigan Department of Education reminded all districts in the state on Monday not to distribute reports containing a printing error.
Reports with results from individual students on the 2023-24 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, known as the M-STEP, were sent to some Farmington Public Schools parents with incorrect subscores on writing, reading, listening, and research that did not match up with the overall scores on the English language arts portion of the exams.
The printouts of the results sent home from schools are the only way parents have to check their children’s individual scores on the M-STEP. The yearly exam shows parents whether their kids are meeting state standards and are at grade-level proficiency.
The MDE first notified districts on Aug. 21 that a third-party vendor sent reports with the printing error. The MDE told districts not to send out those letters, slightly delaying the release of student results to parents. New corrected letters arrived in local districts in early September, according to the MDE.
But Farmington Public Schools missed the first notification about the error from the department, said Bob Wheaton, director of public and governmental affairs for the MDE.
“We are told by the school district that one school, Longacre, sent the erroneous letters to all their parents and that it appears a second school also may have sent incorrect letters,” said Wheaton.
The MDE is working with Farmington to resolve the issue and sent a follow-up communication to all districts on Monday, he added.
“That communication reminds districts not to send the incorrect reports and provides a template letter for them to send to parents explaining what happened and including an assurance that all families will receive the corrected report over a three-week period that began Sept. 6,” Wheaton said.
The reminder about the printing error sent to districts by the MDE and the notifications sent to parents by Farmington Public Schools came after inquiries from Chalkbeat about an erroneous report shared by a parent.
An email from a Farmington Public Schools principal obtained by Chalkbeat shows parents were notified around 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“New reports will be sent to us in a few weeks and we will distribute them at that time,” reads the email to parents.
The inaccurate report shared with Chalkbeat shows the claim indicators for the reading, writing, listening, and research portions of the English language arts results for one student were all marked at “below standard” even though the child’s overall score on the results were marked as “advanced.”
The Tuesday email from Farmington Public Schools to parents confirms the claim indicator scores were incorrect in the reports that were sent out.
The claim indicators show how students performed in specific areas of the exam and offer suggestions for questions parents may ask their children’s teachers to help support their learning.
The M-STEP is given each spring to students in grades 3-7 in English language arts and math. Students in fifth grade also take the M-STEP in science and social studies.
The exam results offer a statewide snapshot of how many students are at grade level in those subject areas. For parents, the results show whether their children are mastering state standards. According to the MDE’s website, the results provide parents with “valuable information” on their student’s academic achievement.
Individual student scores are not accessible online, according to the MDE.
The parent reports are usually available to local education agencies, school districts, and charter schools from late August to mid-September.
A third-party vendor contracted by the MDE sends the results for each student to districts and charter schools to forward to parents.
Emails show Farmington Public Schools was not aware of the printing errors on Sept. 9, when a parent contacted an administrator about a letter she received that showed inaccurate results.
Dany Rossman, parent of the student in Farmington Public Schools, said she received the incorrect report on Sept. 5.
Though the error was obvious to Rossman, she worried that it might not be as apparent to parents with kids who scored at or behind grade level.
“In my situation, this is a pretty obvious error,” she said. “But, I don’t know if once you start moving toward the middle of proficiency it becomes more confusing.”
Parents who may not be closely looking at the results, who aren’t as familiar with the M-STEP, or who have language barriers may also be more likely to miss the error, she added.
Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.
