ERIC Number: ED588845
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Apr
Pages: 20
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Student Achievement and Growth on California's K-12 Assessments
Ugo, Iwunze; Hill, Laura
Public Policy Institute of California
The second year of California's statewide administration of the Smarter Balanced assessment allows parents, educators, and policymakers a second look at achievement and a first look at growth for K-12 students as measured by this standardized test. This report describes how California's students performed on the second year of the assessment relative to the first. The authors compare these results to those of other states administering the same exam; they also compare the first and second years of the California Standards Test (CST) to these first years of the Smarter Balanced assessment. The report examines district and school results for the cohort of students going from 4th to 5th grade, taking advantage of the fact that Smarter Balanced scores can be compared across grades in a meaningful way. The report compares achievement levels over time, considers the growth in student test scores, and examines the two measures in combination, using the state's new academic accountability metric. Controlling for demographic characteristics, the authors ask which districts and schools are performing better or worse than their peers, and whether they were also outliers on the previous years' standardized tests. The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) targets funding to districts, but because results at individual schools can often vary widely from the district average, the authors examine the differences in achievement and growth between schools and their districts. Findings reveal that California's school children did much better in the second year of the new statewide standardized tests, though achievement gaps have not substantially narrowed. The districts and schools that either exceeded or failed to meet expectations according to estimates based on their student demographics often differed from those identified as outliers by the state's new academic accountability measure. Results at many schools outperformed or--more often--lagged behind the overall results in their districts.
Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Achievement Gains, Elementary Secondary Education, Educational Assessment, Standardized Tests, Achievement Gap, English Language Learners, Low Income Students, Low Achievement, Mathematics, Language Arts, Funding Formulas, School District Autonomy
Public Policy Institute of California. 500 Washington Street Suite 800, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel: 415-291-4400; Fax: 415-291-4401; Web site: http://www.ppic.org
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: Parents; Policymakers; Teachers
Language: English
Sponsor: Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
Authoring Institution: Public Policy Institute of California
Identifiers - Location: California; Michigan; Washington; Oregon; Connecticut
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A