INSTRUCTIONS FOR REPORTING DISCREPANCIES IN THE
PRELIMINARY SPRING 2014 MCAS RESULTS
The online discrepancy reporting period is open from August 7 through 5:00 pm, August 14, 2014. It is essential that principals and school leaders review their preliminary results during this period, or delegate this task to a designee.
Discrepancies reported after 5:00 p.m. on August 14will not be corrected in time for the September release of official MCAS results.
I. Accessing Your School/District Spring 2014 MCAS Results
Begin your review of the preliminarydata by examining your student rosters and data files posted to the MCAS 2014 Data DropBox in the Department’s Security Portal at Please refer to the June 25 Student Assessment Update at more information about the schedule or for help accessing MCAS data. The MCAS 2013–14 RosterLegend and the MCAS 2013–14 File Layout, available in your dropbox, will assist you inunderstanding the data.
The Security Portal is password protected. Each district's directory administrator is responsible for assigning the MCAS security role to appropriate school/district staff. A list of directory administrators by district is available at
II. Reviewing Your Students’ Data
The following are the primary tasks you need to complete to ensure accurate reporting of spring 2014 MCAS test results:
- Confirm that all students enrolled during the entire test window are listed on the school roster and included in the school/district data file.
- Confirm that each tested student is listed only once, with a valid SASID.
- Verify that each student’s test participation status is correct.
Please note that missing item responses (either for individual items or blocks of items)are no longer considered discrepancies and should not be reported.
III. Reporting Discrepancies
Instructions for using the online discrepancy reporting tool are provided below. All reported discrepancies will be carefully reviewed and, if necessary, investigated. If a discrepancy is confirmed to be valid, it will be corrected and updated intheofficial spring results. All corrections will be reflected in parent/guardian reports, to be released in September 2014.
If you have any questions about the discrepancy reporting tool, please contact the MCAS Service Center at 800-737-5103. Please direct any policy-related questions to the Department’s Student Assessment Services unit at 781-338-3625 or .
Instructions for Reporting Discrepancies
Once you have confirmed discrepancies in the preliminary data and gathered all available evidence, you are now ready to use the online tool to report the discrepancies. Go to the MCAS Service Center website ( and select “MCAS.” Next, select “Discrepancy Reporting” from the menu on the left. Enter your user name and password, which weremailed to the school principal in a Department memorandum in January 2014. If you need assistance with your user name and password, please call the MCAS Service Center at 800-737-5103.
From the top of the “Home” page, select “Discrepancy Reporting.” Under “Basic Filtering Options” choose the “Grade Level” from the drop-down menu, and a list of students in the chosen grade will appear. To report a discrepancy for astudent on the list, select the “Edit”link beside the student’s grade. A new page will appear, pre-populated with information on the student in question.You will report discrepancies on this page.
Participation Status Codes:
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Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
ABS / AbsentALT / Tested Alternate Assessment
ALN / Retested Alternate Assessment Not Aggregated
ALR / Retested Alternate Assessment
DNT / Did Not Test
DUP / Multiple Answer Booklets
INC / Incomplete
INV / Invalidated
LEP / First-year LEP
MED / Medically Excused
PAS / Previously Passed
PPR / Previously Passed and Retested
PRC / Exempted Due to PARCC
PRF / Previously Failed
REN / Retested Not Aggregated
RET / Retest Student
STD / Tested Standard
TRN / Transferred
VAB / Voided Answer Booklet
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Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
The page for each student is divided into three sections: 1) Student Information; 2) Request for Test Data Review; and 3) Issue Review/Resolution. The discrepancies you may report in each section are explained below.
You will see yellow padlock symbols beside many of the text boxes in the discrepancy reporting tool. A yellow padlock indicates the data are locked—you may not alter these data on your own. The text boxes that do not have a padlock are open for your editing or comments.
After completing all discrepancy entries for a particular student, you must click “Submit” at the bottom of the page in order to submit your changes and/or requests for review. Once you have submitted the changes/requests, you cannot return to edit that student’s information again.
Section 1: Student Information
This section contains student identifying information from your district SIMS. It also contains information on the student’s participation status for eachrequired test. You are allowed to update both types of information, as described below.Please be cautious in submitting any updates in this section because these changes will be automatically updated in the student’s official MCAS record.
1. Check missing SASID: If the student’s SASID is blank, fill in the correct SASID in the SASID dialog box. Without a valid SASID, the student’s MCAS results will not be linked to the MCAS historical record. For high school students with missing SASIDs, the Department cannot accurately report Competency Determination (CD) status and eligibility for the Adams Scholarship and Koplik Certificate of Mastery Award.
2. Changetestingstatus: If a student is listed as Medically Excused orAbsentand you determine that the testing status is incorrect for ELA/Math/STE, you may change it to the appropriate test status within the choices offered in the dropdown box.If a student is listed as having a Voided Answer Booklet, you may un-void the booklet by selecting Tested Standard. If you believe the status should be something other than the allowable choices, please click the Department Review check-box in the Request for Test Data Review section and explain the necessary change in the comment box.
Note regarding "Exempted due to PARCC"testing status: If students in your school were exempted from taking MCAS, you may change the test status from "Exempted due to PARCC" to "Absent" for students who were absent during the administration of the ELA and/or math PARCC field test.
Section 2:Request for Test Data Review
This section allows you to submit comments regarding potential discrepancies that may warrant a review of SIMS data by the Department or the student’s answer booklet by the Department or its testing contractor.You must click the appropriate check-box and then use the comment box to explain the issue.
Click the Measured Progress check-box if any of the following situations applies to the student:
1. Test results belong to a different student: If you believe the test resultsare credited to the wrong student,provide the SASID, first and last name, and date of birth of the student to whom you believe the results actually belong.
2. Duplicate results: If a student’s participation status is listed as “DUP,” this indicates the student has two sets of results. If the student did not have a testing irregularity and you believe one set of results belongs to another student, specify that the reported student’s first and last names and date of birth should be reviewed on the answer booklets to determine if the two sets of results belong to the same student or to two different students.
3. Incorrect SASID: If you believe a student’s SASID is incorrect, provide the student’s correct SASID in the comment box.
4. Student’s participation status is “Absent,” but student was not enrolled at your school during the testing window: In rare cases, a student is reported as “Absent,” even though he or she was not enrolled during the testing window. This happens if the school submitted an answer booklet for a student who is no longer enrolled. Use the comment box to indicate what you believe the status should be.
Click the Department Review check box if any of the following situations applies to the student:
1. Student’s test participation status should be “First-year LEP”: If you believe that the student was first enrolled in a U.S. school after March 1, 2013, you may use the comment box to request that the student’s status be changed to first-year LEP. The first-year LEP student’s results will still be reported, but will not be included in school and district aggregations. However, the Department will use historical SIMS data to validate the number of years the student was enrolled in Massachusetts schools.
2. Student’s test participation status should be “Transferred”: If you believe the student’s participation status should be reported as “Transferred” (TRN), enter a comment. However, the Department will not change the participation status to TRN if the student was listed as “enrolled” in your school in the March 2014 and June 2014 SIMS.
3.Nonstandard accommodation status is incorrect: If the student is marked incorrectly as receiving a nonstandard accommodation in Reading Comprehension (read aloud), Composition (scribe), and/or Mathematics (use of calculator for non-calculator session), use the drop-down box to make your selection.
4. For high school only—Student listed as “Absent” for ELA or Mathematics test, but student previously participated in the spring grade 10 test in thatsubject: Click the Department Review check box if a student’s test status is “Absent” for either grade 10 ELA or grade 10 Mathematics, and if the student has already participated in the spring grade 10 test in that subject (retests do not count). In the comment box, specify that you are reporting a student who previously participated in either a spring grade 10 ELA test or a grade 10 Mathematics test. Please note that participating in a retest administration does not satisfy the Department’s spring MCAS testing requirements. Provide the year in which the student took the test, the school (name and code) at which the student took the test, and the name of the student if the student used a different name when taking the test.
5. For high school only—CD status is incorrect: If you believe that a student’sCD status for a particular subject is incorrect, click the Department Reviewcheck box and use the comment box to specify the CD status you believe is correct. Specify the subject, the scaled score and achievement level, and the test administration in which that performance level was earned. In specifying the test administration, you must note the year the test was taken and the exact test you are referring to—for instance, the spring 2013 grade 10 Mathematics test or the November 2013 ELA retest.
Note: Summarize field in section 3is defined as follows:
- Summarize “Yes”indicates that the student was required to test, and results will be summarized in state, district and/or school participation and/or performance reports. Note that inclusion in school and district results depends on whether the student was enrolled for the full academic year, or since the beginning of the 9th grade for high school science.
- Summarize “No” indicates that the student was not required to test, and results will not be included in school and district accountability summaries for participation or performance. Most students in this category were taking the MCAS as a retest or to earn an Adams Scholarship or a Koplik Certificate of Mastery.
Section 3:Issue Review/Resolution
Once a discrepancy report has been submitted, the Department or the testing contractor will investigate and enter the resolution in the comment box in this section. Although you cannot return to edit the student’s information, you will be able to view the determined outcome in the comment box within one week of the end of the discrepancy reporting period.
MCAS Discrepancy Tool Technical Requirements
Microsoft Windows ® / Macintosh®Operating System /
- Windows 7 SP1
- Windows Vista® SP2
- Windows XP® SP3
- 10.8 Mountain Lion®
- 10.7 Lion®
- 10.6 Snow Leopard®
RAM / Windows 7 SP1
- 2 GB or greater
- 1 GB or greater
- 2 GB or greater
Processor /
- Core 2 Duo or greater
- Core 2 Duo or greater
Hard Drive /
- 100 MB
- 100 MB
Internet Browser /
- Internet Explorer 8.x, 9.x, or 10.x
- Firefox® 17 ESR[i]
- Safari® 5.x or 6.x
- Firefox® 17 ESR1
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Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
[i]Measured Progress has tested and certified its applications using Firefox 17 ESR (Extended Support Release). Firefox 17 ESR provides a version of the Firefox browser designed for mass deployment and management. For more information on Firefox 17 ESR, please visit
To download Firefox 17 ESR for Windows, go to: .
To download Firefox 17 ESR for Macintosh, go to:
NOTE: Technical requirements are subject to change pending release of new browsers or operating systems.The information contained in the requirements conforms to current quality assurance testing at the time of publication.