Algebra/geometry sequence passing rose from 36.5 to 49.7 percent, with changes in incoming students accounting for only 17.8 percent of the improvement¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2002 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The percent of high school eligible students passing the algebra/geometry sequence two years after elementary school rose from 36.5 to 49.7 percent; adjusted, it rose from 37 to 50 percent, with incoming student changes accounting for only 17.8 percent of the improvement and other changes, possibly curricular reforms, accounting for 82.2 percent. → Shazia Rafiullah Miller 2002

Evidence¶

Shazia Rafiullah Miller 2002¶

Shazia Rafiullah Miller, Elaine M. Allensworth, Julie Reed Kochanek. (2002). Student Performance: Course Taking, Test Scores, and Outcomes — The State of Chicago Public High Schools: 1993 to 2000. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/student-performance-course-taking-test-scores-and-outcomes

q2 · i? · associational · r3

Two-year cohort trend analysis of math course-taking among high school eligible Chicago students, adjusted for student characteristics, covering the period after the sequence became a graduation requirement in 1997–98. The report attributes "the bulk of the improvement (82.2 percent)" to changes other than incoming student composition.

"For the 1998–00 cohort, 50 percent of students passed the sequence, compared with 37 in 1993–95. This suggests that changes in incoming students account for only 17.8 percent of improvement, while other changes, possibly curricular reforms in the high schools, account for the bulk of the improvement (82.2 percent)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Full college-sequence completion rose from 9.6 to 15.8 percent, with about 75 percent of the unadjusted increase due to factors other than student composition — related
• On-track rates after ninth grade rose from 42.2 to 50.6 percent, with slightly less than half the adjusted improvement attributable to better-prepared entering students — related
• Rising honors course-taking was due primarily to better-prepared students, with only small adjusted gains — related
• Chicago's Algebra Initiative raised the 8th-grade algebra pass rate from 4% in 2002 to about 20% by 2017 and closed two-thirds of the NAEP gap — related