Showing GROWTH

I met with Linda Layden last Friday for my child's annual review. 'Nuff said.

Before and after we discussed my child, we talked about the action that the school has been taking to create and implement an AIG program.

One of the questions on my mind, (and one that I've discussed with many friends who are parents of gifted students,) is "How does my child possibly show growth on the EOGs when his percentile and his actual (1-2-3-4) "score" is consistent? It turns out there's a (really complicated) formula for "Growth" and "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP), and scores for those two things, that the school gets and parents don't.

I'm not advocating that you call the school and find out what your child's "growth" score and/or AYP are...it isn't really going to tell you anything new. But, it is interesting to learn that what we see on the standardized test results, and what the state looks at to determine a school's "label" are two different things.

If you love to soak up bits of trivia and have great comprehension skills, you can click on the title above or copy/paste this link: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/accountability/reporting/abc/2006-07/standards2006.pdf to see how the calculations are done. I opened it, said "oh, okay", read as much as I could, and closed the page - without much more depth of understanding.

Here's a taste of it (the formula was changed for the 2006-2007 school year, and the site says it may have slight modifications again in 2008)"

"Under the new formulas, student scores were standardized and a student’s performance was considered as a point on the c-scale (change scale) relative to standard performance for that grade level in a standard setting year. A student’s developmental scale score was converted to a c-scale score."
"Under the new formulas, the individual student is expected to perform as well, or better, on the end-of-grade (EOG) assessment for the current year as she or he did, on average, during the previous two years when the student’s scores are placed on the c-scale. As an indicator of growth, the new model is based on academic change. The academic change is based on an average of the previous two years’ assessments. If there is only one year’s EOG test data available, the expectation for change will be based on one previous assessment. Like the original formulas, the new formulas factor in an adjustment for
regression to the mean (a student who performs above or below the mean score on one EOG will likely score closer to the mean on a subsequent EOG)."
"Academic change is expressed as the difference between a student’s actual c-scale score for the current year and the student’s average of two (in most cases) previous assessments (EOGs and EOCs) with a correction for regression toward the mean. A positive academic change indicates a gain in academic achievement, while a negative academic change indicates a loss in academic achievement from the previous two years. The simplified formula to determine academic change is:
AC = CS/c-scale – (0.92 x ATPA/c-scale)
Where
• AC = academic change
• CS = current score
• ATPA = average of two previous assessment scores
A modification is made to the formula for determining academic change in grade 3 and for any instance when only one previous year’s EOG score is available or only one previous year’s EOC score is required. The formula*, adjusted for one previous year’s assessment score, is:
AC = CSc-scale – (0.82 x PA c-scale)
Where:
• AC = academic change
• CS = current score
• PA = previous assessment score"

Maybe one of our kids who is participating in MathCounts (which is being implemented THIS YEAR!) can explain that to me. I have a decent head for figures, but can't quite get my mind around that one.

The school gets a list of each child's computed c-score. If the score is positive, the child has shown growth. If the score is negative, the child has had some academic regression. There is another complicated formula that takes all the c-scores and manipulates them to get an overall score for the school.

Now that I'm totally confused, and wondering why anyone would want this information, I realize that I may not ever understand quite how the calculations work, but I now know that it is possible for every child to show "academic growth" from one year to the next. I still wish so much focus didn't have to be put on teaching our children how to take the EOG tests, and more attention could be paid to differentiated instruction, but right now I'm thankful that we are at least taking baby steps.