Links for Portland Parents of Talented and Gifted Children

Portland Public Schools 2012-13 Achievement Gains

Check this out first: 2012-13 PPS Assessment Overview: Student Gains by Performance Level

The tables below break out the  "exceeds" portion of the "Overview" graph by grade level, income and ethnicity.  The students who exceeded make much smaller gains than students in other groups; in addition, there is a much greater difference between the gains among the groups of "exceeded" students than there is among the students in other ability groups. For example, if you look at the bar chart for students who were "low-performing" you will see that the bars for all students, Hispanic, Black, and Free-Reduced Meals are nearly the same length whereas among Exceeded students the bars for the final three groups are much shorter than the bars for all students. 

2012-13 Achievement gains; Exceeds broken out by Income and Ethnicity 

Notes: 

These tables and graphs were compiled in 2014 from data on the Portland Public Schools website, in the section for "Testing".  See http://inside.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/rne/results/2013/index.php

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

This year, I have not included the "meets" column in the tables/charts on this page. See the separate page for "meets" gains

This report includes students who have a valid score from both 2011-12 and 2012-13. The data for "gains" subtracts student achievement test scores for each student in 2012 from the achievement test score for the same student in 2013 except in the case of eleventh-grade gains.  As there is no ninth or tenth grade test, the scores of students from 2009-10, when they were in the eighth grade, are subtracted from their scores for 2013 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."

The first column shows the average gain from one year to the next for all Portland students who exceeded the benchmarks.  The following columns show score gains for Free and Reduced Lunch, African-American, and Hispanic American students who exceeded benchmarks in the previous year's test. 

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 more 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 reading and math bar graphs are not the same. 

In addition, results might look different if confidence bands were included.