Within-year (fall-to-spring) achievement gains decelerate linearly as students move through school, at roughly 1.4 to 4 RIT per year depending on subject and centering grade¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2019 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2024: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Fixed-effect estimates show fall-to-spring growth in math decelerates linearly at roughly 1.4 RIT (centered at grade two) and 1.99 RIT (centered at grade four), and in reading by almost 4 and 2.5 RIT respectively. → Soland 2019

Evidence¶

Soland 2019¶

Soland, J. & Thum, Y.M. (2019). School effectiveness, summer loss, and federal accountability: Applying the compound polynomial model in a program evaluation context. The Collaborative for Student Growth at NWEA Working Paper. https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/school-effectiveness-summer-loss-and-federal-accountability-applying-the-compound-polynomialmodel-in-a-program-evaluation-context/

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Fixed-effects estimates from CP models fit to MAP Growth RIT scores (grades 2-6, 570 schools), reported in Table 2 for math and reading with time centered at grades two and four. The article reports "within-year growth in math decelerates linearly" at the printed rates.

"Fixed effect estimates indicate that within-year growth in math decelerates linearly at a rate of roughly 1.4 RIT for models centered at grade two and 1.99 RIT for models centered at grade four. For reading, that linear deceleration is almost 4 RIT when centered at second grade and 2.5 when centered at fourth grade."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• In the study data, mean spring grade-2 math RIT was 190.6 with linear spring-to-spring growth of 14.5 RIT, and mean fall-to-spring gain in grade-2 math was 13.4 RIT — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Mathematics growth in Grades 1-3 is nonlinear with deceleration, so more growth occurs in the first half of the school year, and average growth rates decline across grade levels — related
• Students who placed on or above grade level in Grade 1 showed accelerated second-half growth in Grade 3, while growth rates declined in all placement groups — related
• More of the variance in linear growth lies at the school level for fall-to-spring than for spring-to-spring estimates, in some cases twice or three times as much — related
• Fall-to-spring growth rates in high school grades, particularly in reading, are often close to zero and can be negative — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Within-year fall-to-spring gains are largest in second grade (about 13.4 RIT in math) and slow by roughly 1.4 RIT per year as students progress through elementary school — related
• Assuming linear within-year achievement growth is often not justified, particularly in reading — related
• Rate of improvement in addition practice shows negative acceleration, with the first half of practice the more productive — related