Portland Public Schools 2011-12 Achievement Gains of Low-Performing Students

Compare this table with the table for students who exceeded: in most cases low-performing students in these groups were within less than one point of each other and no group consistently outperformed the others--including the whole group.  Among students who exceeded, however, students in the smaller groups underperformed the whole by between about 1 point and 2.5 points.  That may sound like a small difference, but it is equivalent to several month's gain among students who exceeded. When repeated year after year, it creates a real gap among students. Minority/low income students who exceed are less likely to continue to exceed than their non-minority/low income classmates. 

Portland Public Schools 2011-12 Achievement Gains: Low-Performing Students broken out by Income and Ethnicity

Notes: 

These tables and graphs were compiled in 2012 from data on the Portland Public Schools website, in the section for "Testing".  See http://inside.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/rne/results/2012/index.php .

Numbers from several different tables were combined and a graphing program was used to display the numbers.

This report includes students who have a valid score from both 2010-11 and 2011-12. The data for "gains" subtracts student achievement test scores for each student in 2011 from the achievement test score for the same student in 2012 except in the case of eleventh-grade gains.  As there is no ninth or tenth grade test, the scores of students from 2009, when they were in the eighth grade, are subtracted from their scores for 2012 when they were in the eleventh grade.   Students taking the test are grouped by ability in five groups: "Very Low, Low, Nearly Meets, Meets, and Exceeds."  I have not included the "very low" group because once the students are broken out by ethnicity, the numbers in each group are very small.

The first column of the chart shows the gains for PPS students who were in the "low" category" the previous year(s).  The following columns show the gains of those students within that category who were  also listed as Free and Reduced Lunch, African-American, and Hispanic American students . 

The chart and graphs represent a "snapshot," not a trend.  It does NOT trace gains from third grade to tenth grade for a single cohort of students.  It compares the gains achieved by students in different grades who all took one test last year and another test one or two years previously.

The chart and graphs only represent student learning for the curriculum that was included in the test and may not fully represent what students actually covered or learned during a year. 

Please note that the scales for the two charts are not the same.  In addition, results might look different if confidence bands were included.