USNS 2023 Updates

Thank You

A very sincere thanks to the entire community of USNS educators and for your efforts to improve instruction and math learning for all your students. Your passion, caring, and expertise is inspiring, and is what inspires and informs this project’s continual improvement efforts. Many of you shared feedback and corrections with our team. We listened to this feedback and incorporated your suggestions in this newest version of the assessment guide released in July 2023.

July 2023 Updates

Find a full list of corrections below:

• The introduction was revised and updated with current language.
• All reference to digital assessments was removed. Digital assessments components should be given via paper and pencil.
• A new document related to accommodations was added.
• Numbering was fixed throughout so that it is consistent through the entire document.
• All extra pages were removed, so that there are no blank pages.

Additionally, there were updates made to assessments within the document. If you are planning to administer the 5th grade spring assessments or 6th grade midyear assessments, we strongly recommend reprinting those assessments, as two errors were fixed that were student-facing. Other errors that were made are listed below and relate to rubric, scoring clarifications, and alignment fixes.

• Minor fixes were made to CCSS Fall alignments. In the 3rd Grade Fall assessment (question 8 was fixed (was NBT is now MD), and numbering was corrected.
• Grade 4 Fall assessment Spanish was fixed on number 5 in the quick script.
• Grade 6 Midyear, graph on question 6 was changed so that both x and y axes go to 15.
• Grade 6 Midyear Spanish translation added.
• Kindergarten Spring assessment, in the detailed script some redundant language was removed.
• Grade 1 Spring – page spacing was fixed (quick script spilled over onto the first page of written assessment.)
• Grade 1 Spring to the page of strips of ten a card with the numeral 54 was added.
• Grade 2 Spring – questions 4 and 5 CCSS alignment was fixed (was 1.NBT.B.5 is now 2.NBT.B.5)
• Grade 3 Spring – question 4 new language was added to clarify scoring if a student applies a traditional algorithm.
• Grade 4 Spring in quick script language fixed to indicate number line runs from 0 -5 (Question 4).
• Grade 4 Spring on note catcher, question 1 numbers are fixed to match the prompt.
• Grade 5 Spring, in the detailed spring guide for question 2 language for rubric level 0 was fixed.
• Grade 5 Spring, question 7 in detailed rubrics. Numbers in rubric have been fixed.
• Grade 5 Spring, question 8 in detailed rubrics – language clarified for when a student writes an equation that represents repeated addition.
• Grade 5 Spring, question 9 on written assessment modified in both English and Spanish to prompt students to write an equation to match.
• Grade 5 Spring, Question D2 a “÷” was missing from one of the equations. That is fixed, in both English and Spanish.
• Grade 6 Spring – Spanish translation was added.

If you have questions related to this latest version of the USNS assessments, please connect with screeners@forefront.education.