Portland Public Schools has directed the administration of the MAP Growth Assessment during Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL). MAP testing will cost valuable instructional time, produce unreliable data, and further racial inequities in our system. It would be an affront to the District’s equity goals to make any decisions about instruction or programs based on data that is inevitably inaccurate and racially biased.

Testing students to give teachers meaningful information is valued, but testing students during distance learning will cause more harm than good by:

• Reducing instructional time resulting in lost opportunities for student learning given the amount of time needed to administer the MAP Growth Assessment online and therefore disrupting the PPS’ Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum.
• Resulting in unreliable data that doesn’t paint the true assessment picture teachers need to develop individual student growth planning, because of the invalidity remote assessment administration introduces, given the extreme variability in student home environments, or lack of a controlled environment.
• Increasing racial inequity, already amplified during distance learning, given the reasons for unreliable data stated above, test results would exacerbate the racially biased identification of students.

Beginning soon, PPS District will start directing teachers to administer the MAP Growth Assessment. By signing today, we state our support for opposing the MAP testing because it will further reduce instructional time that is already limited and increase racial inequity only to produce unreliable data. We demand Portland Public Schools to suspend this assessment until CDL is over.