Productivity profiles in adjacent grades are negatively related, so judging a school from selected grades alone can be very misleading¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r? · q2
Currency · newest study 1998 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2003: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Improving productivity at one grade tends to be followed by some declines at the next grade, and the reverse is also true; averaging across at least a couple of adjacent grades gives a more stable estimate. → Anthony S. Bryk 1998

Evidence¶

Anthony S. Bryk 1998¶

Anthony S. Bryk, Yeow Meng Thum, John Q. Easton, Stuart Luppescu. (1998). Mining Productivity: How to Read Your Productivity Profile. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu

q2 · i? · associational · r?

Statistical analysis of Chicago elementary school productivity profiles reported in the School Improvement Summary section. The guide states that "averaging across at least a couple of adjacent grades provides a more stable estimate of school productivity."

"Our statistical analyses have identified negative relationships between profiles in adjacent grades. That is, improving productivity at one grade tends to be followed by some declines at the next, and the reverse is also true."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Judging school improvement requires reading learning gain trends and output trends simultaneously, since either trend monitored alone can mislead — related
• CPS elementary school productivity improvements stalled after 1997, with no evidence of significant productivity growth since then — related
• Profile trends labeled up or down are determined by statistical criteria, so those labels denote statistically significant trends — related
• CPS elementary ITBS scores improved across the 1990s in both reading and math for all age groups, but trend gains flattened after 1998 — related