Brown bag lunch to review Aspire testing, which replaces AMRT

MADISON – The replacement for the Alabama Reading and Math Test (AMRT) will be the topic at a Brown Bag Lunch hosted by Madison City Council of PTAs on Friday.

Students at West Madison Elementary School. (CONTRIBUTED)

The lunch meeting will start at noon in the Central Office board room, 211 Celtic Drive.

Developed by the ACT company, the Aspire testing program has been adopted by the state to replace ARMT in elementary schools, council president Sonja Griffith said.

Judy Warmath, elementary instruction coordinator for Madison City Schools, will explain the new testing program, which school leaders will implement in spring 2014. Warmath will answer questions about how these changes will impact the classroom.

One major difference will be more digital testing with the use of computers, Griffith said.

“Classroom instruction is more rigorous this year due to the adoption of the Alabama College and Career Readiness Standards,” Griffith said. “The Aspire testing will have a national standard, since it is a national test, not a state specific exam, such as the ARMT.”

Children who move or go to schools outside Alabama will have “test scores that can carry over to their new districts,” Griffith said.

Madison’s middle school students have been taking the Explore and Plan tests, also products of ACT. All juniors in Madison schools will take American College Test (ACT) in spring 2014.

Last spring, Madison schools ‘tested’ the ACT Aspire test. “We felt like it was important to have an opportunity in advance to see how our students performed on these assessments,” director of instruction Dr. Camille Wright said at that time.

ACT Aspire is the first digital, longitudinal assessment system to fully connect student performance from elementary grades through high school. ‘Longitudinal assessment’ refers to “assessments to track student performance consistently from elementary through graduation,” coordinator of auxiliary services Bob Lipinski said.

For a reservation for the brown bag lunch, email to madisoncitypta@gmail.com or visit Facebook/Madison City PTA.