Can I see the questions on these tests?

The number of questions a student answers correctly on an EOG or EOC test is converted to a number that is referred to as a “scale score”. This scale score can then be converted to one of four Achievement Levels - I, II, III, or IV. If a child obtains an Achievement Level III or IV score, he or she is considered proficient (i.e., the student has shown the ability to do what is expected at that grade in that subject).

When these scores are looked at across an entire school, they can give you good information about the performance of a school as a whole. It is important to remember that because these tests are designed primarily to measure the overall performance of schools, scores for individual students are less reliable than average scores for entire schools. A teacher’s assessment of what a student knows and is able to do is just as important to consider when determining how well an individual student is performing in school.

Schools use EOG and EOC results in a many ways. Test results can help target instruction to the specific needs of students. The results also give parents and students feedback on the progress being made from year to year. Teachers also use these test results to evaluate how well they are doing in getting their students to learn the material in the Standard Course of Study.

In grades 3 through 8, scores are used to help make promotion and retention decisions for students according to state and local policies. Specifically, students who score in Achievement Level I or II on their reading or math EOG test at the end of the year must be provided with extra instruction immediately, and might not be allowed to move on to the next grade until they retake and pass those tests (i.e., get a Level III or IV score) after the benefit of that extra instruction. Remember that promotion/retention decisions are NEVER based solely on any single test score. In reality, many kinds of information are used before making a decision to retain a student in grade.

In grades 9-12, state policy requires at least 25% of a student’s grade in any course that has an EOC test to be based on the score on that EOC test. Starting with incoming 9th graders in the Fall of 2006, a new state policy will require high school students to pass five selected EOC tests in order to receive a diploma. Specifically, students who score in Achievement Level I or II on the Algebra I, English I, Biology, Civics and Economics, and/or U. S. History EOC tests will be in danger of not graduating until they retake and pass those tests.

Since 1996, schools have been rewarded each year by the state based on (1) the percent of tests on which students score at Achievement Level III or IV and (2) how much growth students show on these tests from one year to the next. The state sets standards for both of these measurements that are used to help determine the overall performance of the schools in terms of student achievement.

If the students in a school show “expected” or “high” levels of growth on state tests from year to year, the school may be given an award by the state recognizing their performance, and teachers and teacher assistants get a bonus of up to $1,500 each. Depending on how much growth students demonstrate, and on how many students score in Achievement Level III or IV, schools are given labels. The table below outlines the main labels that the state assigns to each school based on how well their students perform on state tests:

If your child’s school has the label of… then it means that…
School of Excellence Students met or exceeded their growth target last year on state tests, and they scored in Achievement Level III or IV on at least 90% of the tests they took.
School of Distinction Students met or exceeded their growth target last year on state tests, and they scored in Achievement Level III or IV on 80-89% of the tests they took.
School of Progress Students met or exceeded their growth target last year on state tests, and they scored in Achievement Level III or IV on 70-79% of the tests they took.

Although the ABCs Accountability Program is designed to evaluate schools, it begins with the scores of each individual student on each test to make that evaluation. Statistical formulas are then applied to those test scores to evaluate how much progress students in the school have made for that year. The state has developed new formulas for 2005-06 to determine whether each student makes “a year’s worth of growth in a year’s worth of time” on each of the state tests they take. The extent to which students accomplish this (i.e., meet their growth targets) determines whether the school as a whole makes “expected” or “high” growth.

Although these formulas calculate growth student by student and test by test, the accumulation of growth is averaged across the entire school. Regardless of how high or low a student scored last year, s/he is expected to show a certain amount of growth on the current year’s tests. If a student scores high compared to her/his peers one year, then s/he is expected to score high compared her her/his peers the next year as well. For example, if a student scores higher than 90% of the students in the state on their 4th grade End-of-Grade Reading test this year, then s/he would be expected (roughly) to score higher than 90% of her/his peers again the next year on the 5th grade End-of-Grade Reading test. In other words, students are expected to progress at about the same rate each year so that they maintain their position in the group from year to year. The term that the state uses for this is called “Academic Change” (AC). Students who maintain or improve their position in the group from one year to the next are assigned an AC score of 0 or above; students who fall back relative to their peers are given a negative AC score.

These individual AC scores are then averaged across the entire school. If the average AC score across all the students in a school is equal 0 or more (i.e., one year’s worth of growth), then the school is said to have made “expected” growth. If a school makes expected growth and 60% or more of the students in the school have AC scores of 0 or higher, then the school is said to have made “high” growth.

Yes. The state has changed the statistical formulas it is using to calculate “expected” and “high” growth. The state’s new 2005-06 formulas predicts expected achievement based on past achievement at the individual student level. The previous formulas made predictions based on groups of students, not individual students.

A second change this year has to do with the fact that this year’s End-of-Grade math tests in grades 3 through 8 are new tests that are being given for the first time. Any time the state changes a test, it causes a delay in the reporting of results of that test. For this year, because these math tests are new, the performance of the state’s elementary and middle schools under the ABCs Accountability Program will not be reported until October 2006. The performance of high schools, however, will be reported in August as usual.

The new formulas have several advantages over the previous ones. Two of the biggest improvements are:

With these new formulas, the state estimates that fewer schools will achieve expected growth, and substantially fewer schools will achieve high growth. Therefore, a school that met the growth standards in 2004-05 might not meet the standards in 2005-06, even if they do just as well as they did in 2004-05 in terms of raising student achievement, simply because the state has set the standards higher this year.

Also, results on this year’s new math tests will be reported later than usual for elementary and middle schools. As mentioned under Question #12, if your child is an elementary or middle school student, then not only will this year’s ABCs Accountability Program results for your school not be reported until October, but if your child is in grades 3 through 8, her/his individual score on the End-of-Grade math test will also not be available until then.

If schools do not make “expected growth”, they will not receive any recognition labels or any monetary rewards. In addition, schools where “expected growth” is not earned and where students score in Achievement Level III or IV less than 60% of the time are labeled by the state as a “Priority School” or “Low Performing School”. These schools are given extra help by the state to improve teaching and learning for their students.