EVAAS

While School Value-Added reports provide reliable measures of average student growth for the group of students served, the School Diagnostic reports offer important information about the growth of groups of students at different achievement levels. These reports can help you reflect on how your instructional programs are supporting the academic growth of all students.

Expected Performance Level Groups

In this report, students are placed into groups based on where their predicted scores fall relative to the ranges set by the state for each performance level in the selected grade and subject or Keystone content area. This method of placing students is used for all assessments, regardless of whether the data is analyzed with the growth standard methodology or the predictive methodology. For most grades and subjects, a student must have three prior scores from state assessments for a predicted score to be generated. For students who have fewer than three prior scores, no predicted score is generated, and the students are not included in this report.

However, to provide reports for fourth-grade subjects, predicted scores are generated from only two prior scores.

To view the list of students in a group, click the value in the Growth row of the table or in the row. From the lists, you can click a student's name to view the student's testing history. If your account permissions do not include access to student data, you cannot view the lists of students or their individual testing history reports.

Growth

A simple growth measure is created for each predicted performance level group. These values indicate the amount of academic growth students in the group made, on average, in the selected grade and subject or Keystone content area. Use caution when interpreting these growth measures; the values in this report are not the result of the statistically rigorous analyses that generate growth measures for the value-added reports. For assessments analyzed with the growth standard methodology, the growth measure is the difference between the group's average score in this subject in the most recent year and the group's average score in the subject the previous year. For assessments analyzed with the predictive methodology, the growth measure is the difference between the group's average score on the assessment and their average predicted score.

In addition to the growth measures for the most recent year, the report includes the average growth of students at this school for up to three previous years, when available. Note that these growth measures represent three prior cohorts of students, not the previous growth of the most recent year's students.

If a predicted performance level group has fewer than five students, no growth measure will be calculated, and no bar will appear for that group in the graph. For more information about the growth measures in the diagnostic reports, see Technical Details.

Growth Standard

The growth standard represents the point at which the students' scores, on average, align with expectations.

The growth standard signifies the minimum amount of academic growth that educators should expect a group of students to make in a subject and grade or Keystone content area. In general, this signifies appropriate, expected academic growth. Simply put, the expectation is that regardless of their entering achievement level, students served by each LEA/district, school, or teacher should at least make enough progress to maintain their achievement level relative to their peers. This is a reasonable target for educators who serve all types of students. The growth standard is represented by a horizontal green line in the graph.

Standard Error

All growth measures on the PVAAS reports are estimates. All estimates have some amount of measurement error, which is known as the standard error. This value defines a confidence band around the growth measure, which describes how strong the evidence is that the group of students exceeded, met, or fell short of the growth standard.

For more information about standard errors, see Growth Measures and Standard Errors.

In this report, the standard error is represented by black whiskers on each bar in the graph. The solid lines of each whisker mark one standard error on either side of the growth measure, and the dotted lines mark two standard errors. For information about interpreting the charts, see Interpreting the Data.

Student Count

These rows list the number of assessments in each group.

For more information, see Technical Details.

Percentage of Students

These values represent the percentage of the school's students who were in each predicted performance level group for the selected grade and subject or Keystone content area.

Viewing Bar Chart or Pie Chart

The bar chart is displayed by default. To change the chart from vertical to horizontal, choose from the Chart Orientation drop-down menu below the chart. To view the pie chart, choose from the menu below the chart.

The size of each pie slice represents the percentage of students who were in each of the predicted performance level groups.

Color Coding

The slices of the chart are color-coded to indicate whether the data suggests that students in each predicted performance level group exceeded, met, or fell short of the growth standard.

For information about interpreting the charts, see Interpreting the Data.

Filtering by Student Group

By default, the report includes all the School's students in the selected grade and subject, Keystone content area, or college readiness test who had sufficient data. Use the Add Student Groups filter to view the report for a subset of students. The list of filters is based on the demographic data in the state assessment files.

To filter the list of students included in the report, click above the graph. In the Student Groups window, you can choose any combination of race, sex, and demographic groups.

If you choose more than one group within a category, the report includes students who are in either group. For example, if you choose Black and Hispanic, the report includes both Black students and Hispanic students.

If you choose multiple groups across categories, the report includes only students who are in the selected groups in all categories. For example, if you choose Male and IEP, the report includes only males who are identified as receiving special education services.

When you are finished making selections, click Submit. The report includes only those groups of students you selected.

Even when viewing a filtered group of students, placement of students into the achievement groups is still based on students' relative achievement to students in the reference group in the selected grade and subject or Keystone content area.

More Information

Diagnostic and Projection Summary Reports: Using Together for Decision Making