HSA Results 2006-2010

I talked with the guys at the accountability office earlier this week, and they said that the 2011 HSA score report is due out on Friday.  Which is great, because I've been waiting on it since April, when Deb already had the data and made nice charts for us to wring our hands over.

One of many things I don't like about the way the data are usually reported to us is the way they report by grade level, then compare last year's fourth graders to this year's fourth graders, as if that tells us much about our fourth grade instruction.  At a small school such as Voyager, the classes vary so much from one year to the next, that it's really comparing apples to oranges.  

What would be better, I think, is to track each class of Voyager students longitudinally until graduation.  Assuming the tests are equally challenging each year, and generally aligned with state standards (don't know if I can make this assumption), we should be able to compare this year's fourth graders with their performance as third graders last year, and see how well our fourth-grade instruction served them.  Capice?

So . . . I borrowed the last four years of data from the principal's report (thanks, Deb! Awesome organization!), and lifted the math scores by strand (more useful for planning instruction than an overall "math" score).  Then, I followed each class of students as they took the test, year by year.  The result is attached.  Once we get the scores from 2010, I can add the last data point in each of the charts, and then we can take a gander and look for pukas in math understanding.  It's just a little piece of the assessment puzzle, and it's fraught with problems, but more information is usually better, and I figure we should use what we have.  

One caveat about the data reported by "strands":  the "percent proficient" numbers are low because the test has a large margin of error, probably because of the low number of problems in each strand.  So there's a high percentage of kids whose score in a given strand is "too close to call".  Only the students whose score is safely above the standard deviation for that strand is deemed "proficient", or above.  So don't look at the scores that are like 8% and grieve--there were 80% of the students in some cases who MIGHT be proficient, the test just isn't good enough to tell us who is and who isn't. 

But the scores can be useful, I believe, in revealing our relative areas of strength and weakness in math, and which classes may need the most help this year to be successful (seventh graders).

The question of margin of error and statistical significance might also be why we were allowed to slip by with a 61% this year for AYP, even thought the goal was 64%.  At a school as small as ours, a 61% may just as well be a 64%, statistically speaking.  

I'd like to do the same type of charting with our schoolwide DRA and SRI scores, so that we can track progress over multiple years.  Still searching for the Google App that catalogs and analyzes assessment data for us. :)

It was a very good day to be a teacher,

Evan