CPS elementary ITBS scores improved across the 1990s in both reading and math for all age groups, but trend gains flattened after 1998¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr3·q2
Currency · newest study 2002 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2005: local conditions change quickly
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
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q2 i? ITBS grade-equivalent trends from 1990 to 2001 show considerably higher scores for all age groups than at the start of the 1990s, but 2001 reading and math scores for ages nine through eleven were less than 0.1 GE higher than in 1998. → Todd Rosenkranz 2002
Evidence¶
Todd Rosenkranz 2002¶
Todd Rosenkranz. (2002). 2001 CPS Test Trend Review: Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Consortium on Chicago School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/2001-cps-trend-review-iowa-tests-basic-skills
q2 · i? · associational · r3
Trend analysis of ITBS grade-equivalent scores by age cohort from 1990 to 2001, reported in the Elementary School Test Score Trends section and Figure 2, tracking nine- through fourteen-year-olds against national norms.
"Taken as a whole, trends show improvement across the decade. In both reading and math, scores are considerably higher for all age groups than they were at the beginning of the 1990s. There are indica- tions that trends have flattened in the past few years, however."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- All six CPS age cohorts saw a slight 2001 decline in math scores of less than one month, which a Rasch-score re-analysis suggests reflects an actual drop in learning rather than test-form effects — related
- Reading score trends flattened for ages 9-12 and declined at ages 9 and 12 in the grade equivalent metric by 2000 — related
- CPS elementary school productivity improvements stalled after 1997, with no evidence of significant productivity growth since then — related
- CPS academic productivity gains peaked in 1997, with 1999 gains uniformly lower than 1997 gains at all grades — related
- Math test scores in CPS elementary schools continued long-term improvements for all age levels through 2000 — reports the opposite
- Grouping students by age instead of grade is a viable alternative for tracking ITBS score trends, mirroring the grade-group findings — related
- Chicago elementary student achievement improved steadily from 1990 to 1999 under local control, with the share of students reaching national norms growing to 35 percent in reading and 43 percent in math — related
- After adjustments for inclusion-rule changes, CPS elementary test scores continued to improve through 1999, with long-term math gains across all grades but slowing reading improvement at ages 9, 11, and 12 — reports the opposite
- CPS learning gains were consistently higher in all grades in 1996 than in 1994, but 1999 gains declined slightly relative to 1997 in all grades except third, suggesting productivity gains may have peaked — related
- Judging school improvement requires reading learning gain trends and output trends simultaneously, since either trend monitored alone can mislead — related
- Mean foundational-skills scores rise from fall to spring with the largest gains in kindergarten and grade 1, and growth flattens by grades 2-3 — related
- For cohorts born since 1990, reading progress increased while math progress slowed — related
- Productivity profiles in adjacent grades are negatively related, so judging a school from selected grades alone can be very misleading — related
- A Rasch-score re-analysis corroborates slowing and in some cases declining test score trends, with nine-year-olds an exception — related
- In fifth-grade reading, ITBS scores declined significantly more than ISAT scores from 1999 to 2002 — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
cps-itbs-decade-gains-flattened-after-1998 |
title |
CPS elementary ITBS scores improved across the 1990s in both reading and math for all age groups, but trend gains flattened after 1998 |
description |
CPS elementary ITBS scores improved across the 1990s in both reading and math for all age groups, but trend gains flattened after 1998 |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2002 |
recheck_by |
2005 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-08 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — todd-rosenkranz-2002 |
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