For past Information Works! reports, select a school year:
- Assessments
- Disaggregations
- Accountability
- How Rhode Island Classifies Schools
- 2007 School-Performance Classification: Elementary | Middle | High
- State Indicators
- Value Added: Elementary | Middle | High
- Learning Support Indicators: Elementary | Middle | High
- Health: Middle | High
- Suspensions: State | Elementary | Middle | High
- Students' Point of View: Middle | High
- Advanced Placement Exams
- Teaching Practices: Elementary | Middle | High
- Students with Disabilities
- Students with Disabilities-District Participation
- Students with Disabilities-School Participation: Elementary | Middle | High
- English Language Learners
- Elementary | Middle | High
- Tax Charts
- In$ite: Other Commitments
- In$ite, Instruction: District | Elementary | Middle | High
- In$ite: Out-of-District Obligations
State Report Card: |
< previous | next > |
Student Performance Adjusted for “Value-Added”
Select a school level to view/download the charts in PDF:
- Elementary (102KB)
- Middle (48KB)
- High (48KB)
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
The Value-Added tables show what percentage of the students in each school met or surpassed the standard on the state tests. These tables use 2006-07 assessment data. They are sorted in such a way as to show you how the students in each school performed in comparison with similar students statewide. In the schools in the top band on the list, for example, the students performed better than similar students statewide on the state tests.
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR
If you were to sort Rhode Island schools by test scores, you would find that you have also sorted them by family income. This phenomenon would hold true in other states, and in other nations. Without the strong intervention of effective schooling, students tend to achieve according to their socioeconomic backgrounds. It does not have to be this way. Schools can make a difference in a challenged child’s life. We call this concept “value-added.”
By using a statistical model, we can show which schools do very well—add value—with a difficult student population and which schools may have test scores that seem impressive but that, when compared with similar students statewide, could be better.
This value-added model compares the performance of each school’s students with the performance of similar students statewide by adjusting for these factors:
1. Poverty
2. Non-English speaking background
3. Having special learning needs
4. 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.
Also see the technical description of the model.