User's Guide: Reading the Reports
School Report – Page 1
Field #2: Statistically generated performance range/actual
performance
|
Percent of eligible
students in this school who met or exceeded the standard
compared to the percentage of similar student statewide
|
|
|
|
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
This chart shows the relationship between the actual performance
of students in this school—expressed as the percentage of students
who met the standard on the state tests—and the statistically
generated performance range of similar students statewide. This
chart uses only the 2002 assessment data. WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING
FOR
You are hoping to see the school’s students performing at or
above the performance range of similar students statewide. This
computer-generated model is not a standard, and performing as well
or even better than similar students across the state is only the
beginning of a journey towards 100% proficiency of all students.
Over time, as the schools improve, the computer-generated ranges
will themselves rise. This model helps us understand that schools do
not start on a level playing field, and some will need more time,
specialists, resources or any number of supports to help all of
their children reach proficiency.
Statistically generated performance models level the playing
field
Schools with high concentrations of low-income or special-needs
children have always complained about being unfairly compared with
schools whose less challenged children perform at higher levels on
standardized tests. So, for example, the achievement demonstrated by
schools on this year’s Performance Progress charts roughly reflects
their average socioeconomic background. The schools designated as
high performing tend to have children who come from more affluent
backgrounds; the reverse is also true.
In general, the public tends to compare high-performing schools
with low-performing schools without considering differences in
student characteristics. In fact, poverty is the strongest predictor
of student achievement, except for that student’s prior achievement.
(Without a Universal Student Identifier system in place that would
enable RIDE to know students’ grade-point averages, RI is not able
to factor prior achievement into its research.) The rationale
Increasingly, education researchers are using these models, often
called “value-added,” to calculate what results schools are likely
to achieve when taking into consideration the characteristics of
their student body. “Value-added” means that as compared with
similar students statewide, does the individual school add more
value, or improve the child’s skill set more effectively, than other
schools in the comparison? For over 40 years, researchers have known
that the achievement results of different sets of students, such as
those from different schools, vary in association with several
specific key factors, including:
- Poverty (by far the strongest predictor of student
achievement, with the exception of prior achievement)
- Non-English speaking background
- Educational background of the parents
- Having special learning needs, and
- Having a minority racial group identity
Though individuals with one or more of these characteristics can
and do perform well on state assessments, the majority tend to
perform less well than children who do not have these
characteristics. The many reasons for these historic patterns of
lower achievement include such things as school expectations, the
availability of flexible grouping and different types of
instruction, inadequate funding and support to the schools these
children attend, individual and family health, and the quality of
social services offered to students.
Statistical models allow the public and those evaluating school
performance to look at the achievement data through a lens that
factors in some of the students’ challenges. This value-added
perspective helps us to see to what extent the challenges facing
each school influence performance.
These models predict only for groups of students with similar
characteristics; they can not predict any individual student’s
performance. As always, the unit of accountability in RI’s school
reform agenda is the school and not the individual student. The
Rhode Island model
Rhode Island researchers created a model which considers the five
characteristics mentioned above. Because Rhode Island is such a
small state, the entire body of XXX students enrolled in public
schools serves as the context from which the test and grade-specific
ranges were derived. Thus, students within a school are compared
with similar groups of students statewide; schools themselves are
not sorted for comparisons. The computer-generated ranges will
change depending on the test because, for example, a writing
assessment is more strongly affected by language minority status
than a math test. The model uses only the 2002 assessment data.
A technical description of the model is available through under
Technical Bulletins or upon request
from the RIDE Office of Research, High School Reform and Adult
Education.
|
