Within-school variation in baseline achievement is greater in middle school grades, but upper elementary grades show an offsetting amount of between-school variation¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr?·q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2020: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
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q2 i? Decomposition of baseline achievement variation within classes, between classes at the same school, and between schools shows more within-school pretest variation in middle school grades and an offsetting amount of between-school variation in upper elementary grades. → Eric Isenberg 2015
Evidence¶
Eric Isenberg 2015¶
Eric Isenberg, Bing-ru Teh, Elias Walsh. (2015). Elementary School Data Issues for Value-Added Models: Implications for Research. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, vol. 8, issue 1. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/journal-article-elementary-school-data-issues-for-valueadded-models-implications-for-research doi:10.1080/19345747.2014.974231
q2 · i? · associational · r?
Decomposition analysis of pretest score variation within classes, between classes within schools, and between schools across grade bands. The study "found more within-school variation in pretest scores in middle school grades" with offsetting between-school variation in upper elementary grades; no effect sizes are printed.
"We computed the variation in baseline student achievement within classes, between classes at the same school, and between schools. We found more within-school variation in pretest scores in middle school grades but an offsetting amount of between-school variation in upper elementary grades."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
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- Community-area hardship index explained 65% of between-community-area variation; most variation in participation was at the student level — related
- At the school level, domain-identical pretests show exceptional prognostic power from grade 5 onward, but are weaker predictors at the student and classroom levels across the school career — related
- Sociodemographic covariates outweigh domain-identical pretests for predicting between-classroom and between-school variance in elementary school — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
achievement-variation-offset-across-grade-bands |
title |
Within-school variation in baseline achievement is greater in middle school grades, but upper elementary grades show an offsetting amount of between-school variation |
description |
Within-school variation in baseline achievement is greater in middle school grades, but upper elementary grades show an offsetting amount of between-school variation |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2015 |
recheck_by |
2020 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-08 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — eric-isenberg-2015 |
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