ED465804 - Examining Relationships between Where Students Start and How Rapidly They Progress: Implications for Constructing Indicators That Help Illuminate the Distribution of Achievement within Schools. CSE Technical Report - ERIC-ED465804 | Content Details

ED465804 - Examining Relationships between Where Students Start and How Rapidly They Progress: Implications for Constructing Indicators That Help Illuminate the Distribution of Achievement within Schools. CSE Technical Report

Source Institution: California Univ., Los Angeles. Center for the Study of Evaluation.; National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, Los Angeles, CA

Sponsoring Agency: Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC

Subject: Academic Achievement, Achievement Gains, Change, Elementary Education, Elementary School Students, Longitudinal Studies, Status

Abstract: Attending to school mean rates of change and to differences in rates of change for various demographic groups is of central importance in monitoring school performance. This paper makes the case for the need to expand this focus by also considering the relationship between where students in a school start (their initial status), and how rapidly they progress. In particular, the paper explores several ways in which attending to initial status in analyses of student progress can help draw attention to possible concerns regarding the distribution of achievement within schools, and, it is hoped, help stimulate discussion among teachers and administrators at given school sites regarding these concerns. Key points are illustrated by fitting a series of growth models to the time series data for students in several schools in the Longitudinal Study of American Youth sample. (Contains 7 figures, 6 tables, and 32 references.) (Author/SLD).