3. Achievement: A Three Sided View

Information Works! provides a three-sided view of student achievement in the individual school reports. The views are presented in Field 1: Achievement Results, Field 2: The Statistical Model, and Field 4: Three Year Breakdown of Achievement Results. This portrayal leads to a much richer and deeper understanding of how an individual school is helping its students attain the required level of proficiency. A detailed discussion for each of the fields follows. 

3.1 Field 1: Achievement Results

Field 1 or “Achievement Results” as shown below in Figure 1, presents the percentage of eligible students at each performance level on the school assessments. Figure 1 also shows the percentage of students that met or exceeded the standard when LEP Level 1 and the students eligible for Alternate Assessment were included (shown by the triangle below the bars).

3.2 Field 2: The Statistical Model 

Field 2, as shown below in Figure 2, presents a school’s achievement results on various state tests in a manner different from, but complementary to, the reporting of assessment scores as shown in Field 1. Field 2 is the outcome of research conducted at RIDE & NCPE. The researchers studied the current literature¹ on performance indicators of school effects in an attempt to identify an effective school. This year’s model is based on data sources that are readily available. The researchers report on the percentage of eligible students who have met or exceeded the standard (shown in Figure 2 as the Actual Range) compared to the percentage of similar students statewide (shown in Figure 2 as the Sample Range). Field 2 thus demonstrates how an individual school is performing while taking into account other socioeconomic factors of students compared to similar schools statewide. The researchers call this group of similar schools a “virtual school.” It is assumed that as schools improve and as the statistical model is refined, the “virtual school” will also change. Over time, the virtual school model hopes to provide an additional measure by which the state can target investments of both money and human resources to improve schools.

3.3 Field 4: Three-Year Breakdown of the Achievement Results 

Field 4 presents a three-year breakdown of the achievement results. The achievement results are viewed against four basic categories for the elementary school and three categories for the middle, and high schools. The common categories are: ethnicity, gender, and special programs. The elementary schools have one additional category for poverty/non poverty. In Infoworks! this chart is commonly referred to as the disaggregation chart.