NWEA MAP Suite vs. Renaissance Star Assessments

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
NWEA MAP Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
NWEA, a nonprofit headquartered in Portland, offers the MAP Suite, their flagship assessment platform and suite.N/A
Renaissance Star Assessments
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Star Assessments are a suite of assessments for reading, math, and early literacy, in both English and Spanish, boasting users among over 30,000 schools. Star Assessments helps educators to gain accurate insights into student learning, growth, and achievement—so they can help all learners reach their full potential. The full Star Assessment suite includes the computer-adaptive Star Reading (K–12), Star Math (K–12), and Star Early Literacy (pre-K–3) assessments; a formative assessment tool, Star…N/A
Pricing
NWEA MAP SuiteRenaissance Star Assessments
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
NWEA MAP SuiteRenaissance Star Assessments
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
NWEA MAP SuiteRenaissance Star Assessments
Considered Both Products
NWEA MAP Suite
Chose NWEA MAP Suite
NWEA MAP Suite is more directly aligned to our college and career readiness state standards and ACT. The questions are more rigorous than Renaissance Star Assessments. The reports on the NWEA MAP Suite are more detailed and exact in where the data came from.
Renaissance Star Assessments
Chose Renaissance Star Assessments
NWEA is more rigorous than STAR Assessments. NWEA MAP aligns directly with our state and ACT tests. Our district uses STAR Assessments for benchmark and progress monitoring. We use NWEA MAP for benchmarking. NWEA MAP does not have progress monitoring (math and reading …
Chose Renaissance Star Assessments
We have used a few products like NWEA/Map, Lexia Rapid, Curriculum Associates/ i-Ready Diagnostics. Renaissance/Star360 stacks up to all of them, but doesn't exceed them. Star360 has less basic features (like school level grouping, exporting reports as a csv file, saving …
Top Pros
Top Cons

No answers on this topic

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User Ratings
NWEA MAP SuiteRenaissance Star Assessments
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.2
(66 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(9 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(5 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(15 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
NWEA MAP SuiteRenaissance Star Assessments
Likelihood to Recommend
NWEA
NWEA MAP is a great assessment for 1st grade and up. It directly aligns with the college and career standards. It can predict achievement on the ACT and state assessments. NWEA MAP used with kindergarten is not as aligned. It is very difficult for new kindergarteners to take. Most students guess because the assessment gets very long for them. It is a great assessment for the middle of the year for high achievers and at the end of the year for all students who are entering 1st grade.
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Renaissance Learning
Many of my students reach the 852 score and are eligible to take the Star Reading test in the Spring. This is due to the reports telling me which skills to work on and being able to group students according to skill needs. When I need teacher assistance, online meetings with Renaissance support personnel has been available. Renaissance always welcomes teacher feedback to improve their products. The company has acquired many classroom tools in the last years and connected them fir ease of teacher use, which saves classroom time.
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Pros
NWEA
  • NWEA MAP Suite calculates projected growth for individual students based on their grade level and RIT score for each subject.
  • Projected growth can be found on many different reports.
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Renaissance Learning
  • Renaissance Star Assessments gives me a look at each student as an overall reader.
  • Renaissance Star Assessments shows me the areas of which my students are struggling.
  • Renaissance Star Assessments is linked with Nearpod, so I can assign lessons based on what each student needs.
  • Star CBM helps me see whether my students' fluency is improving or not.
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Cons
NWEA
  • NWEA MAP has technical issues during prime testing times (fall, winter, and spring). It is as if the system gets overloaded and cannot handle all of the students logged on at once.
  • I would like to be able to see the reports immediately. Currently, you have to wait until the next day for the scores to be available.
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Renaissance Learning
  • The graphs for each subject are not consistently the same. (ie. some graphs are by 5s and some are by 50s.) It's very confusing to read them.
  • The questions are not rigorous enough for state standards.
  • Different reports will show data that does not align. If 'state' is chosen, then all reports should show the same data. The Parent Report will show the child in 'green', but every sub-skill is in 'red'. That is super confusing for parents and teachers.
  • All reports should be based on the same score, but they are not. It is like comparing apples to oranges on the same child.
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Likelihood to Renew
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
I give it this rating because it is an essential program in our school. We set up reading groups throug( the Star assessment. We set goals based on the assessment. Students comfort zones are based on the zpd data in Star. We track students progress through the data found in Star.
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Usability
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
I love the idea that it takes only a short period of time for the students to be able to take the quizzes and obtain results. I appreciative how quickly the teacher has plans on implementation in her/his hands as soon as the class has completed the quiz.
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Reliability and Availability
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
It’s wonderful
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Performance
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
I absolutely love this program
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Support Rating
NWEA
The customer service is phenomenal! Every time I call, which is not very often, I always get a friendly agent that works hard to solve my problem and does not give up. They look at all angles of the issue and will go above and beyond to help. For example, our students are rostered by connecting NWEA MAP Suite to our SIS, and sometimes there is a glitch. NWEA will call the other software company if necessary, to help get the glitch fixed.
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Renaissance Learning
After using the product for multiple years, I am very pleased with the assessment administration and report options. I use STAR Assessment data regularly and review the different reports to guide instruction. There are many different report options to help meet the needs of the teacher and student. STAR Assessments are a valuable assessment tool for the classroom
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Online Training
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
I just feel this way.
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Implementation Rating
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
When presenters show us how to use the program they need to have a full class size of data. During training, there were only 5 or 6 sample students. Classes are more like 25 and that makes the training more realistic to have similar data to what we will use.
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Alternatives Considered
NWEA
NWEA MAP Suite is more directly aligned to our college and career readiness state standards and ACT. The questions are more rigorous than Renaissance Star Assessments. The reports on the NWEA MAP Suite are more detailed and exact in where the data came from.
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Renaissance Learning
Renaissance Star Math Assessment provided a proven data collection tool. This was also being used at the lower grades in our district, so it made sense to continue with its use to provide a more reliable and accurate picture of our students entering the middle school. The continuation of the data trail should continue to help their overall growth.
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Scalability
NWEA
No answers on this topic
Renaissance Learning
Great overall program with lots of advice in implementation
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Return on Investment
NWEA
  • Allowed us to test students 3x a year to better evaluate if a student is growing or not.
  • The data from the MAP assessment may be included as part of the placement review process along with other data points, such as student work samples and other assessment data to help determine if a student is ready for the next grade level.
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Renaissance Learning
  • It has positively impacted student time to learn by reducing testing times and allowing more time for instruction
  • The reduced testing time also positively impacted our schools by freeing the computer labs and making the planning and creation of testing schedules easier. This has allowed more computer lab use for education and learning.
  • It has negatively impacted the time and effort required by support staff, administrators, and some teachers by requiring more time spent on looking up results or going to multiple spots and manually combining results because a larger group couldn't easily be made.
  • Another negative impact on our district is that it has also taxed those few educators with more technical ability and data knowledge moreso than other programs. The need to create/summarize/write programs to deal with full, raw data export files since the smaller, more specific reports and summaries are not downloadable into a format that can be manipulated easily (pdf only, not csv exports), and to constantly back up data exports and to have to search through them when the State wants results on past students etc.
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