FAQ - Available Data

Does the database include start and end dates for the school year?

• We do not systematically collect start and end dates for the school year in the GRD. 

Are all students tested twice yearly, so that we can compare school-year and summer learning?

• All MAP licenses allow for testing up to 4 times per year.  Most schools test at least twice per year, though a small percentage only test once.  In regard to comparisons around summer learning, that is an issue that is of particular interest to us.  And we have good data to explore it.

Can teachers be identified by names or other characteristics? 

• Generally, the answer is no, unless you are able to obtain their specific written consent for NWEA to release the data to you.

Can schools or districts be identified by name or NCES code?

• We may identify schools or districts in GRD data, if the researcher agrees NOT to identify or otherwise disclose the schools and districts in any published report stemming from the data.  If schools and/or districts will be identified in reports stemming from the data, then we must have written permission in the form of a data release from any schools that would be included.  We can work with the researcher to determine how to best obtain that release, but it is a step you will want to consider when you are thinking about the scope of work for your project. 

We are interested in understanding socioeconomic status beyond race and ethnicity. Can socioeconomic data be linked in from NCES? Are NCES data available for all schools, or only for a subset?

• NCES data are available for all schools who participate in the survey.  We access the publicly available dataset (CCD - Common Core of Data) and link it into the GRD. The CCD field that is a socioeconomic indicator for the schools is the number and percentage of Free and Reduced Lunch students at a school.

Is there any way to link to neighborhood information, such as average household income or home price?

• At this time we are not systematically linked into census data, though we could feasibly look up individual school addresses and make the links that way.  We would still need to maintain our school and district privacy policy.

Are schools distinguished by sector (e.g., neighborhood public schools, private, charter, magnet)?

• Yes, we can code and aggregate school type using the NCES data.

How do the MAP tests aligned with different states’ standards? Are the standards-based tests really based on each state’s individual standards?

• Yes.  To illustrate, all reading tests developed by NWEA come from a very large pool of items that are all calibrated to a single scale.  The item pool for each state test is selected from this large pool of items and items are chosen to align with each state’s particular content standards.  The reason that tests can be compared across states is that all tests are “children of the same parent”. 

What kind of data is available among high schools?

• Although we have proportionally more data for grades 3-8, we do have many districts testing in all grades from Kindergarten through grade 12. There are some challenges in working with high school data, which we will communicate to researchers who are interested in this kind of data.

Can NWEA link to NCES restricted data?

• No, we only have access to the publicly available NCES data.