• Subject Area/Course Grades
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• Reading Level
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• Benchmark Assessments
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• Value Add/Growth Measures
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• Repeated Courses/Grades
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• Language Assessments
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• Other Specialized Assessments
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• Sources

Educators spend their careers ensuring students are mastering curriculum and reaching their full potential.  Mastery of curriculum can be captured through a variety of measures including class grades, interim assessments, and targeted assessments focused on skills such as language and reading.  Depending on the type of measure, information is most effectively used at points in time within a school year to ensure students are performing at grade level, and/or across years to assess whether students are making adequate progress from year to year.   Both aspects of measurement are important to knowing whether a student masters the content expected for a specific course and whether that student is adequately prepared for promotion and progressing each year. 

The most widely accepted form of assessment is the subject area or course grade.  Grades provide educators with a common language with which to evaluate students’ learning and progress.  With the proliferation of standardized forms of assessment, states began to set minimum thresholds for students to reach by the end of each year.  Point-in-time measures - like grades - are most effective at measuring mastery of content for a particular subject and grade level within a school year, but are less effective measures of growth made over time.  The growth made in a single year is equally as important as the threshold hit at the end of the year. 

Ideally, every student should make a year of growth within a given school year.  Since students rarely start a school year exactly at grade level (they are typically either above or below the beginning of the year benchmark), various assessments can be used to track progress within a school year.   The first area in which students need to demonstrate mastery in the early years is Reading, as it is the foundation of learning in all other subject areas.  Without a strong Reading foundation, students can struggle through their entire educational career.  Many districts and states use early Reading assessments starting as early as kindergarten to gain an understanding of student performance and measure progress within the year and in subsequent years. 

Monitoring and planning for students’ learning in all core subject areas requires frequent assessments within a school year.  In addition to class grades, many educators administer periodic local assessments - commonly referred to as benchmark or interim assessments - to assess student knowledge and mastery of content taught at the classroom level.  Results of these assessments help instructors make mid-course corrections to ensure students are mastering course content and staying on track for making at least one year of growth.  

Many states and districts use various indicators to assess student academic growth.  These include measures of past growth, measures that use past growth as a means to project future success on standardized tests, and measures that tie student growth to individual educators, programs, or interventions.  In recent years, these indicators have gained momentum because the United States Department of Education (USDE) now allows academic growth as an alternative means for meeting performance standards under the federal accountability system.  Growth measures, ranging from simple to complex statistical calculations, can show how much growth a student, classroom, or campus is making over time.  All types of growth measures are an important complementary measure to absolute performance, as low performing students or campuses may not meet proficiency standards, but may be making tremendous growth through the year.  Conversely, high performing students and campuses may show strong performance on tests and benchmarks, but may not be making a full year of growth.  

English Language Learners (ELLS) are a growing segment of the school aged population who require additional support.  Language Assessments can give educators key insight into areas where an English Language Learner may need special support and instruction.

Collectively, targeted assessments for specific student populations, periodic assessments such as benchmarks and course grades, and growth measures provide a well-rounded picture of a student or school and how students are progressing and projected to progress for each grade level. 

Assessment data from multiple sources can help to systematically improve all levels of the education system by informing all levels of educators about strengths and weaknesses within the system (Pinkus, 2009).

Introduction

The most common form of assessment in education is subject area or course grades.  Subject area grades are primarily used at the elementary level, whereas course grades are used most often at the secondary levels.  Grades are widely used and accepted by educators, parents, and students as measures of growth and success.  Many studies have identified course performance in core subject areas such as mathematics and English as strong predictors of high school completion.  Measures including downward trending grades, grades below a C level and failing grades are all ways to flag struggling students and ensure early intervention.

• Chicago freshmen with less than a C average are more likely to drop out than graduate (Allensworth & Easton, 2007).
• Conversely, among Chicago students who earn a B average or above in their freshman year, over 95% graduate.  These same students have an 80 percent chance of finishing high school with at least a 3.0 grade point average (Allensworth & Easton, 2007)
• Among Philadelphia sixth graders who failed math and/or English, over 80 percent did not graduate within a year of their expected graduation.  Although course grades were found to be highly predictive of falling off the graduation path, by comparison, fifth and sixth grade test scores were not (Balfanz, Herzog, & MacIver, 2007).
• In Chicago Public Schools, the likelihood of a student graduating from high school in four years diminishes with each course failure a student has (Allensworth & Easton, 2007):

o   Zero course failures: 85% of students graduated

o   One semester course failure: 70% of students graduated

o   Two semester course failures: 55% of students graduated

o   Students with three or more failing grades are not likely to graduate

• Although attendance is a similarly powerful predictor of both course failure and dropping out of school, by the end of the first semester, class grades and failure rates are slightly better predictors of graduation than attendance (Allensworth & Easton, 2007).

Related Metrics

• Credit Accumulation: whether or not students are at or above their grade level based on cumulative number of credits earned as of each grading period based on the default state graduation plan.
• Credit Accumulation: Core Course Requirement:  whether or not students are on track for meeting the core course graduation requirement of earning a specific number of credits in each of the four core subjects.
• High School Graduation Plan: whether or not students are at or above the expected credit requirements in all eligible courses for their intended graduation plan.
• Repeat Courses:   the level of students repeating a course due to course failure.

How to Use the Metric

The Class Grades metrics allow educators to readily identify students with failing grades, immediately after the end of each grading period in order to provide timely and appropriate support to students.  Educators are also able to quickly identify students who may or may not be failing but whose grades are declining, putting them at risk of future failure or, at a minimum, not achieving at their full potential.  The better a student’s grades, the greater likelihood they will graduate.

For additional insight into how to best address a student’s needs, educators should also review the student’s academic history (detailed course credit and grade information for current and prior years) to see related courses with which a student may be struggling or has struggled with in the past.  In addition, educators can review aggregated information on failing and declining grades by student and for the class as a whole (“classroom” view) in order to identify and address similar issues among groups of students or within a particular subject.     

With the ability to closely monitor course performance at the end of each grading period, educators can introduce specific academic interventions with one student or a group of students before a declining grade or failure in one grading period becomes a permanent low grade or course failure and credit deficit at semester- or year-end.   In addition to targeted academic support, teachers can pursue interventions to improve the conditions that research suggests affect classroom effort and achievement (Balfanz, Herzog, & MacIver, 2007):

• Support: how well students feel supported and encouraged to succeed.
• Academic Press: the extent to which students feel hard work is expected.
• Parental involvement: the degree to which parents help with homework.
• Utility: the extent to which students believe their studies will be useful in life.
• Interest: the degree to which students find their studies interesting and engaging.

Teachers should review course performance detail and academic history at the end of each grading period as new results are available to ensure failing and declining course grades are promptly addressed and students are brought back on-track.  It is important to note that once course performance data are available, they are an even more accurate predictor of student success than attendance.  Having access to a student’s overall course performance allows teachers across subject areas, as well as counselors, to work collaboratively to address adverse patterns in student performance.

Metric Specifications

• Student: Subject Area Grades
• Student: Class Grades
• Student: Grades Near Failing
• Failed Subject Areas

Introduction

Students spend much of elementary school learning to read and then the rest of their lives reading to learn.  Typically students are assessed with a reading inventory several times a year during elementary school starting as early as kindergarten.  Although reading inventories can vary between schools and districts, regularly assessing the reading level for students and which inventory was used, allows educators to track progress and modify instruction throughout the school year.   Moreover, reading inventories are some of the earliest formal assessments given to students.  They can provide invaluable and early insight into student learning.   Learning to read is critical for success at all levels in the education continuum.

• Students who struggle with reading at the middle and high school level fall behind in all subject areas (Wise, 2009).
• An estimated 1.7 million eighth graders have only basic literacy skills and 1.7 million more are not proficient in literacy (Greenleaf & Hinchman, 2009).
• Youth with reading difficulties are disproportionately incarcerated (Christle & Yell, 2008).

Related Metrics

• Subject Area/Course Grades – Failing:  whether students are failing one or more course grades, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Standardized Test Performance: reports historical detailed and trend data on standardized test performance in all tested subjects including: reading/ELA, writing, math, science and social studies at the applicable grade levels.  Performance on alternative tests, including those for special education and Limited English Proficient students, is also reported.

How to Use the Metric

Reading inventories are given several times throughout the year.  Educators should monitor these levels as they are assessed as they give an early indicator for success on other assessments such as benchmarks and state standardized tests.  At the student level, educators should monitor students’ growth over time and use the student’s individual reading level to ensure that instruction is tailored to each student’s needs.  Aggregated at the campus level, educators can use the reading level metric to identify areas of concern and implement interventions and supports for grade levels and/or classrooms.

Metric Specifications

• Student: DIBELS 6th Edition

Introduction

Many districts or schools give some type of benchmark or interim assessment at several points during the year to track student knowledge and mastery of standards.  Benchmark assessments change throughout the year along with the curriculum making this metric especially useful for classroom educators in assessing past instruction as well as planning for future instruction.  As benchmark assessments are tied to the state standards, monitoring benchmark scores is a means to measure a student’s mastery of the state standards.  Regardless of whether they are formative (given before the content is taught) or summative (administered after the content is taught) assessments, benchmarks will inform the practice of all educators and allow them to make mid-year corrections to address specific needs of students.

• Black and William found that teachers who used formative assessment results to inform their instruction were able to help their students make 15-25% more gains than teachers who did not (Black & William, 1998).
• Schools that are successful in closing the achievement gap use frequent assessments to inform instruction (Symonds, 2004).

Related Metric(S)

• Reading Level: reading level as assessed by any number of reading inventories including but not limited to: DIBELS, DRA, Flynt Cooter, Fountas & Pinnell, etc.
• Subject Area/Course Grades – Failing:  whether students are failing one or more course grades, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Course Grades - # of Course Grades Dropping 10% or Letter Grade:  whether students are experiencing declines of 10% or greater in course grades from prior grading periods and trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Course Grades Near Failing:  whether students have one more or more course grades near failing, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods.
• Standardized Test Performance: reports historical detailed and trend data on standardized test performance in all tested subjects including: reading/ELA, writing, math, science and social studies at the applicable grade levels.  Performance on alternative tests, including those for special education and Limited English Proficient students, is also reported.
• Repeat Courses:   the level of students repeating a course due to course failure.
• Repeated Grade Level: repeating a grade, grade two and above.

How to Use the Metric

Benchmark or interim assessments give educators a view into what a student or group of students has already mastered.  These assessments are either given as formative (before instruction) or summative (after instruction) assessments.  If the assessment is a formative assessment, educators should use the background knowledge students possess as a starting place for instruction.  If the assessment is summative, educators should look at trouble areas and reteach.

Introduction

As educators have gained more regular access to quality data, the limitations of single point in time measures such as state standardized tests or site based formative assessments have become clear.  Not surprisingly, educators have implemented assessments measuring students’ growth during the year as well as growth year over year.  This has become possible with both more accurate measures as well as vertical measurements scores have provided educators with the opportunity to see not just where students are based on a standard but also the growth and progress they have made over time.  During 2005, the United States Department of Education (USDE) began allowing districts and schools to meet Adequate Yearly Process (AYP) proficiency goals by demonstrating sufficient academic growth among student groups not initially meeting absolute proficiency targets based on their respective statewide assessments.  Under an approved growth model, students who are on track toward meeting proficiency standards at a later grade can be counted as proficient in AYP calculations.  While some districts and states had been using growth measures before this point, since the growth model program was introduced, several states have developed and obtained USDE approval for growth models to be used in AYP determinations. 

Value-added growth measures use statistical processes to provide measures of the influence that school systems, schools, teachers, and programs have on indicators of student learning.   With the advent of Race to the Top and the State Longitudinal Data Systems grant programs and improvements in state data systems, many states have begun to develop value-added measures to expand and improve measurement of student growth and/or educator impact on student growth. Growth measures are valuable information to educators because they:

• Provide more accurate measures than traditional status models (McCaffery, Lockwood, Koretz, Louis, & Hamilton, 2004).
• Provide additional insight beyond state assessment performance into how well-positioned a student is to meet the performance standard in the next high-stakes grade after receiving current grade-level instruction. 
• Affect schools’ state accountability by providing another way to meet performance standards.
• Give schools additional flexibility in meeting annual Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets under the federal accountability system.

Introduction

Identifying students who are repeating a grade level and/or core subject course(s) help educators provide targeted support to students who are struggling with course material ensuring they will be successful.

• Early credit shortfalls are important predictors of poor performance: research among Chicago high school students suggests that students, who earn fewer than five credits during their first year, and fail more than one course, are not on-track to graduate.  The likelihood of an “off-track” student graduating in four years is one-quarter that for an “on-track” student (Allensworth & Easton, 2005).
• Students who have been retained are more likely than equally low achieving peers to drop out of school altogether (Jimerson, 1999).

Related Metrics

• Reading Level: reading level assessed by any number of reading inventories including but not limited to: DRA, Flynt Cooter, Fountas & Pinnell, etc.
• Subject Area/Course Grades – Failing:  whether students are failing one or more course grades, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Course Grades - # of Course Grades Dropping 10% or More:  whether students are experiencing declines of 10% or greater in course grades from prior grading periods and trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Course Grades Below C Level:  whether students have one more or more course grades below a C level, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods.
• Benchmark Performance: the score on a given benchmark test and whether or not it is above a threshold. 
• Standardized Test Performance: reports historical detailed and trend data on standardized test performance in all tested subjects including: reading/ELA, writing, math, science and social studies at the applicable grade levels.  Performance on alternative tests, including those for special education and Limited English Proficient students, is also reported.

How to Use the Metric

Students who are either repeating a grade level or course will need extra support.  These students have been through the course or grade once and have struggled.  Identifying these students before they enter the classroom provides educators with a unique opportunity to set them up with extra support, interventions, and ultimately help them succeed.

Metric Specifications

• Student: # of courses repeating
• Student: Repeated Grade Levels

Introduction

Second language learners need extra support from educators especially when they are first immersed in an English speaking academic environment.  Language assessments are given in most states to help educators understand the needs of a particular student or group of students and tailor instruction accordingly.  Monitoring these results longitudinally can help educators appropriately remove supports as they are no longer needed with the end goal of exiting students from English Language Learner (ELL) supports and programs. 

• English Language Learners require instructional accommodations and additional educator support. (Goldenberg, 2006).
• Eighth grade English Language Learners scored 51% below English speaking peers in both reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (Fry, 2007).
• Students who receive instruction specifically geared towards language acquisition and speaking practice are able to understand more complex relationships and problems (Saunders, Patthey-Chavez, & Goldenberg, 1997).

Related Metrics

• Reading Level: reading level assessed by any number of reading inventories including but not limited to: DRA, Flynt Cooter, Fountas & Pinnell, etc.
• Subject Area/Course Grades – Failing:  whether students are failing one or more course grades, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Course Grades - # of Course Grades Dropping 10% or Letter Grade:  whether students are experiencing declines of 10% or greater in course grades from prior grading periods and trend comparisons to prior grading periods. 
• Course Grades Near Failing:  whether students have one more or more course grades near failing, with trend comparisons to prior grading periods.
• Benchmark Performance: the score on a given benchmark test and whether or not it is above a threshold. 
• Standardized Test Performance: reports historical detailed and trend data on standardized test performance in all tested subjects including: reading/ELA, writing, math, science and social studies at the applicable grade levels.  Performance on alternative tests, including those for special education and Limited English Proficient students, is also reported.

How to Use the Metric

Language Assessments are typically given annually to students who speak a language other than English.  The results of these tests give a clear picture of where a student is in terms of their reading, writing, listening and speaking abilities in English.  The results for an individual student allow educators to gradually release support for ELL students.  Aggregated at the campus level, language assessments can help educators see trends and needs and match them to interventions and programs that may be available.

Please check back for more updates.

Allensworth, E., & Easton, J. (2005). The On-Track Indicator as a Predictor of High School Graduation. Chicago: The Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.

Allensworth, E., & Easton, J. (2007). What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools. Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.

Balfanz, R., Herzog, L., & MacIver, D. (2007). Preventing Student Disengagement and Keeping Students on the Graduation Path in Urban Middle-Grades Schools: Early Identification and Effective Interventions. Educational Psychology, 223-235.

Black, P., & William, D. (1998). Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. Retrieved December 9, 2010, from Discovery Education: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/assessment/files/2009/02/blackbox_article.pdf

Christle, C. A., & Yell, M. L. (2008). Preventing Youth Incarceration Through Reading Remediation: Issues and Solutions. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 148-176.

Fry, R. (2007). How Far Behind In Math and Reading are Our Language Learners? Washington DC: Pew Hispanic Center.

Goldenberg, C. (2006, July 26). Improving Achievement for Language Learners: What Research Tells Us. Education Week, pp. 34-36.

Greenleaf, C., & Hinchman, K. (2009). reimagining Our Inexperienced Adolescent Readers: from Struggling, Striving, Marginalized, and Reluctant to Thriving. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 4-13.

Jimerson, S. R. (1999). On the Failure of Failure: Examining the Association of Early Grade Retention and Late Adolescent Education and Employment Outcomes. Journal of School Psychology, 243-272.

McCaffery, D., Lockwood, J. R., Koretz, D., Louis, T., & Hamilton, L. (2004). Models for Value-Added Modeling of Teacher Effects. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 67-101.

Pinkus, L. M. (2009). Meaningful Measurement: The Role of Assessments in Improving High School Education in the Twenty-First Century. Washington DC: Alliance for Excellence In Education.

Saunders, W., Patthey-Chavez, G., & Goldenberg, C. (1997). Reflections on the Relationship Between language, Curriculum Content, and Instruction. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 30-51.

Symonds, K. W. (2004). After the Test: Closing the Achievement Gap with Data. Naperville: Learning Point and Associates & Bay Area Reform Collaborative.

Wise, R. (2009). Adolescent Literacy: The Cornerstone of Student Success. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 369-375.