User's Guide: District Reports – Page 2

Proficiency by Student Characteristics

What you are looking at

These three sets of bar graphs – for the elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the district – show how students from various groups performed on the 2003 state assessments.

The subtest results are aggregated into two scores at each school level: one for English language arts (ELA) and one for mathematics. The bar graphs show the percent of students who reached proficiency, that is, either achieved the standard or achieved the standard with honors. The portion of each bar above the 0 line shows the percent of students who achieved proficiency; the portion below the line shows the percent who fell below the proficiency standard.

Students in poverty are those who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Students may be identified as members of more than one racial or ethnic group (e.g., both African-American and Hispanic). Special-education students are all those with Individual Education Programs (IEPs); LEP (Limited-English proficient) students are receiving either ESL or bilingual-education services. General-education students are those who are receiving neither special-education services not LEP services.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires that we report test results for each of these groups of students (except for general education and nonpoverty).

For another look at this data, comparing this year’s results with last year’s, see the 2003 School & District Report Cards at www.ridoe.net.

What you are looking for

The state’s goal, as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, is to bring all students to proficiency by the year 2014. So ideally you would like to every bar entirely above the line. We are a long way from that goal.

It is important that all students progress toward proficiency, so we are concerned when some groups lag behind others. You can how groups of students are performing relative to other groups of students by comparing the heights of the bars. When some bars fall below others, these are known as “equity gaps.” We would like to see these gaps diminished – and in time we hope to see them disappear.