A Plan for Evaluating the District of Columbia's Public Schools From Impressions to Evidence (2011) / Chapter Skim
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5 Student Achievement Under PERAA: First Impressions
5 Student Achievement Under PERAA: First Impressions
Pages 63-88
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From page 63... ...
Yet, 3 years after PERAA was enacted and after many significant changes have been implemented, it is not unreasonable to consider what has happened, what we call first impressions. In this and the next chapter, we present our first impressions on several goals of the legislation: this chapter considers student achievement data.
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From page 64... ...
Aggregate year-to-year comparisons of test scores in the District's schools are confounded by changes in student populations that result from student moves in and out of the city and between DC Public Schools (DCPS) and charter schools, dropout and reentry, and also from variations in testing practices that may exclude or include particular groups of students.1 For these and other reasons, therefore, it is important to remember that the consensus of measurement and testing experts has long been to use test scores cautiously.
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From page 65... ...
Act (District of Columbia Public Schools, 2010a) .4 DC CAS scores are used to determine if a given school is making sufficient progress under NCLB, and the media and the public look to them for an indication of how well district schools are doing.
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From page 66... ...
The descriptions below are examples of perfor mance descriptions for each level. Below Basic Students are able to use vocabulary skills, such as identifying literal or com mon meanings of words and phrases, sometimes using context clues.
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From page 67... ...
DC has participated in NAEP as a "state" since the early 1990s, and the scores for grades 4 and 8 reflect the performance of all District public schools, including all public charter schools. When NAEP began the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA)
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From page 68... ...
Only three states, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Vermont, showed improvement in three of the four assessments, and no state improved in all four. However, in comparison with other urban districts, the District's scores were similar: many others also showed consistently significant gains.
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From page 69... ...
69 STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT UNDER PERAA FIGURE 5-2 Proficiency levels of District students from DC CAS and NAEP for Fig 5-2.eps 2007 and 2009 in reading and mathematics. SOURCES: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, see 2 bitmaps http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/ [accessed September 2010]
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From page 70... ...
State scores include all DC schools and thus are the focus of this analysis. TUDA scores should be evaluated cautiously particularly when comparing 2007 to 2009 because most charter schools were excluded in 2009 (but included in 2007 -- see text)
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From page 71... ...
71 STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT UNDER PERAA Grade 8 Mathematics 300 290 Austin Charlotte 280 San Diego Houston Boston Average Scores 270 New York 260 Atlanta Chicago DC - State Cleveland 250 DC - TUDA Los Angeles 240 230 220 2003 2005 2007 2009 Year Grade 8 Reading 300 290 280 Average Scores 270 Charlotte New York 260 Austin San Diego Boston Chicago 250 Atlanta e Houston DC - State 240 DC - TUDA Cleveland Los Angeles 230 220 2002 2003 2005 2007 2009 Year FIGURE 5-3 Continued. Fig 5-3.eps landscape sn't seem to have any plotted points)
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From page 72... ...
We note, too, that black, Hispanic and white 4th graders on average scored higher on the DC CAS mathematics in 2010 than in 2007, while English language learners and students with disabilities also showed some improvements relative to their peers: see Figure 5-6. The NAEP data show different results.
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From page 73... ...
. SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, see http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/ redrawn new Figure 5-4 73 [accessed September 2010]
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From page 74... ...
SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, see http:// nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/ [accessed September 2010]
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From page 75... ...
75 STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT UNDER PERAA DCPS Students, Hispanic DCPS Students, Non-Hispanic Black 100 100 Cumulative Percentage Cumulative Percentage 90 90 80 80 Advanced 70 70 60 60 Proficient 50 50 Basic 40 40 30 30 Below Basic 20 20 10 10 0 0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2006 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year Year DCPS Students, English Language Learner DCPS Students, Non-English Language Learner 100 100 Cumulative Percentage Cumulative Percentage 90 90 80 80 Advanced 70 70 60 60 Proficient 50 50 Basic 40 40 30 30 Below Basic 20 20 10 10 0 0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2006 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year Year DCPS Students with Disabilities DCPS Students Without Disabilities 100 100 Cumulative Percentage Cumulative Percentage 90 90 80 80 Advanced 70 70 60 60 Proficient 50 50 Basic 40 40 30 30 Below Basic 20 20 10 10 0 0 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Year Year FIGURE 5-6 DC CAS proficiency levels for grade 4 mathematics by ethnicity, English language learner, and disability status, 2006-2010. SOURCE: Compiled from http://www.nclb.osse.dc.gov/index.asp [accessed December 2010]
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From page 76... ...
Fig 5-8.eps SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, see http:// nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/ [accessed September 2010]
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From page 77... ...
NOTE: Data are from background information on the NAEP state grade 8 reading Fig 5-9.eps test. SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, see http:// nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/ [accessed September 2010]
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From page 78... ...
The composition of students in tested grades in the District of Columbia's public schools, has changed markedly since 2007 (see Table 5-1) .11 The number of students in all tested grades in DCPS has dropped by almost 21 percent, while the number of tested students in the charters has increased.12 However this decrease within the DCPS has not been consistent across demographic groups; in contrast the subgroup composition of students attending public charter schools in the district has remained relatively stable over this same time period -- see Table 5-1.
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From page 79... ...
that are likely to affect local school student populations; consequently, this issue should be carefully considered when interpreting changes in student achievement data. Dropout rates raise similar concerns.
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From page 80... ...
80 TABLE 5-1 Changes in Demographic Subgroups Enrolled in Tested Grades for DCPS and Charter Schools, 2007-2010 DCPS Non Non- Non Year Econ Dis Econ Dis Black Hispanic Whitea LEP LEP SPED SPED Total 2007 subgroup% 62.2 37.8 83.5 9.5 5.3 8.2 91.8 21.8 78.2 # 16,283 9,916 21,881 2,487 1,376 2,185 24,422b 5,707 20,492 26,199 2008 % 64.2 35.8 83.7 10.1 5.7 8.4 91.6 19.7 80.3 # 15,125 8,440b 19,463 2,353 1,331 1,993 21,872b 4,638 18,927b 23,259 2009 % 68.5 31.5 80.0 11.2 6.9 11.6 88.4 20.8 79.2 # 14,631 6,738 17,091 2,389 1,473 2,470 18,899 4,446 16,923 21,369 2010 % 70.4 29.6 78.1 12.1 7.8 8.0 92.0 21.0 79.0 # 14,587 6,140 16,181 2,518 1,610 1,663 19,064 4,352 16,375 20,727 Percentage Point Change in Subgroup 8.2 –8.2 –5.5 2.6 2.5 –0.2 0.2 –0.8 0.8 Composition (2010%-2007%) Percentage Change –10.4 –38.1 –26.0 1.2 17.0 –23.9 –21.9 –23.7 –20.1 –20.9 in Number Enrolled (2010#-2007#/2007#)
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From page 81... ...
NOTES: Tested grades are 3-8 and 10. Econ Dis = economically disadvantaged, LEP = limited English proficient, SPED = special education.
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From page 82... ...
. Using proficiency scores to assess gains and gaps leads to "unrepresentative depictions of large-scale test score trends, gaps, and gap trends" and "incorrect or incomplete inferences about distributional change" (Ho, 2008, p.
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From page 83... ...
, • ethnicity, • income level, and • special populations, such as students with disabilities and English language learners. We also note that policies that change the standards for classifying English language learners have potentially significant effects on the characteristics of the whole population, and, therefore, on average performance.
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From page 84... ...
Even in the absence of improved measures of individual students' socioeconomic status (discussed below) , when the new common core standards and common assessments become available, it should at least be possible to compare academic performance levels of white, black, and Hispanic students in the District with those in other, comparable student populations.
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From page 85... ...
for DC CAS and the inclusion rates of English language learners and students with disabilities for NAEP are also factors that can affect population scores while masking subgroup scores. For example, if there were a significant decrease in the percentage of students tested, it could significantly affect test scores because the students most likely to be excluded are low-performing ones.
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From page 86... ...
There is considerable debate over pay-for-performance and the reliability of value-added measures; we note here only that attaching direct consequences to student test scores may provide an added incentive for teachers to focus on tested content, at the expense of other important educational goals, or even to cheat by offering students help or information they are not intended to have (see Jacob and Levitt, 2003; Lazear, 2006; National Research Council, 2010a)
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From page 87... ...
. District of Columbia Public Schools.
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From page 88... ...
. Office of the State Superintendent of Education.
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