Achievement over the
past three years
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What you are looking at
This graph shows three years of achievement data for math, reading and writing – aggregated from the related sub-tests – broken out by groups of students with similar characteristics. The bar represents 100% of students with each characteristic placed along a horizontal line according to the percent who achieved proficiency and the percent who did not.
What you are looking for
You are looking for the shortfalls between the 100% goal and the actual attained proficiency of children with certain comparable characteristics. You are also looking for gaps between the achievement of groups of students with different characteristics. Equipped with the knowledge of its shortfalls, a school can begin to target strategies and resources to close the gaps and help all children to become fully proficient.
General school-functioning at a glance
Field #4 is significantly changed from previous years. Previously, this field showed certain sub-tests from that year’s assessment data through yet one more lens, specifically how groups of students fared as compared to other groups.
This year’s field #4 still examines the student performance according to groups with specific characteristics, but uses three years of data in three broad subject areas – math, reading and writing. Three sub-tests of math are combined; two English Language Arts (ELA) reading sub-tests are combined; two ELA writing sub-tests are merged along with the RI Writing results.
The point of this change is several-fold. Most importantly, the field paints a general portrait of school function, with the broader stroke of three-years of data and the sub-tests combined. How well are the school’s children performing in math, for example? Could poor reading scores be responsible for keeping the math scores depressed after the school had invested in math? Are all three areas high? Or low? Why?
Furthermore, the combining of data by multiple years and general subject will almost completely eliminate any data-cells smaller than 5 (explained in earlier note). So, for example, those schools who have tiny racial minority populations that have gone unreported because of the possibility of identifying or guessing at the identity of individuals, will now have data indicating the more general achievement of the children with that racial characteristic. Finally, three years’ worth of data is more reliable from a statistical point of view.
Poverty/non poverty
Poverty is defined as any child who is eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The poverty indicator is published at the elementary level only. The information comes from the student header sheets for the New Standards English Language Arts assessment, which are completed by the test administrator.
Note the extra field:
Multi-racial: On the assessments, students are asked to complete their own demographic information with six options of specific ethnic identifications. Students who check more than one option are included in the “multi-racial” category. On the whole, few students listed more than one option. Students who checked no option are not included on this chart.
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