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The 2021-22 school year was the first year that the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) administered the Renaissance Star assessments as a universal screening tool to all students in grades K-12. This series of end of year reports provides an in-depth look at participation and performance patterns as measured during the four 2021-22 Star assessment windows (Fall, Winter 1, Winter 2, and Spring).
From 2014-15 through 2020-21, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) assessed literacy proficiency for K-5 students using aimsweb and aimswebPlus, universal early literacy screening, benchmarking, and progress-monitoring tools from Pearson. This report uses both a cohort analysis and a cross-sectional analysis of aimsweb results to examine the literacy performance from 2014-15 to 2018-19 of three kindergarten cohorts.
When selecting which data to use to monitor progress towards the Board’s Goals & Guardrails, the School District of Philadelphia used prior research that identified relationships between certain data points and school-level outcomes. The selected data points reflect a broad range of specific, measurable characteristics of schools, but they can also be seen as three distinct “sets” of data points reflecting enrollment demographics, school staffing, and school climate. This brief seeks to identify which sets of predictor variables best predict the academic outcome variables and, therefore, provide the best “signals” for identifying groups of schools with common underlying root causes.
The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) is comprised of multiple assessment anchors that represent categories of subject matter (skills and concepts). A strength profile (low, medium, high) is assigned for each anchor by weighting the anchor raw score by the difficulty of the items. This report examines the percentage of students who scored in the high, medium, and low strength profiles on each of the 3rd grade ELA PSSA assessment anchors from 2014-15 to 2018-19, identifying differences in strength profile patterns by student demographic group.
The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) uses scale scores that correspond to performance tiers (Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced). This report examines average scale scores for the 3rd grade ELA PSSA from 2014-15 to 2018-19, identifying differences in scale score patterns by student demographic characteristics and by school.
The School District of Philadelphia Board of Education’s Goals 1-3 are focused on improving the reading and math performance of grades K-8 students on the ELA and Math PSSA tests, both for students overall and for student subgroups. This data brief examines the participation and performance of K-8 students who qualify to receive Special Education services on the Winter 2021-22 within-year Star reading and math assessments.
The School District of Philadelphia’s English Learner (EL) population includes students from over 130 countries who speak over 100 different languages. By tracking the enrollment trends of ELs in the District, we can identify Learning Networks that have growing EL populations and allocate resources to accommodate for the programs and supports that benefit ELs.
Reporting by racial/ethnic subgroup and by English Learner status are crucial tools for investigating disproportionalities, targeting student supports, and monitoring the progress of equity initiatives. However, when student groups are identified in this way, it highlights differences between groups, but may also imply that the differences within those groups are unimportant, or even absent. This brief aims to surface some of the internal diversity within racial/ethnic groups, and within home language groups, by exploring the intersection of race/ethnicity and home language among our students.
In the 2021-22 school year, the District began using Renaissance Star assessments as the screening and progress monitoring tool for all grades, assessing students during four assessment windows throughout the school year. The Star assessments provide multiple metrics that help monitor student performance at each testing window and student growth between testing windows. This reference document discusses what these metrics are, how they are calculated, and what kind of information they provide about student learning.
As one of the primary measures of students’ college and career readiness, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) closely monitors graduation rates each year. This brief explores graduation rates across public schools in the city of Philadelphia in 2020-21, comparing trends for District, Alternative, and Charter schools.