Student Achievement Analysis

Posted: August 7th, 2013

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Student achievement analysis

Which comparisons will you discard as non-informative or of little interest?

In the process of examining the results of the Michigan Merit Exam (MME) for Bronx Community High School, the comparison will not be of much use. The Bronx Community High School is composed of white students, the non-English speaking groups and migrants provide little data. Searching these marginalized groups into the search for test results gave responses of less than 10 or no results at all. The disabled students were also having fewer results. Bronx Community High School is a small, rural district, and the number of disabled students in the classes is extremely small. The search for disabled students also returned no significant answers.

The results from the consequential years will also be highly insignificant. The MME examines students in their junior year of high school. In Bronx, the students are about 55-60 are recruited in each class every year (Lovat 98). When comparing the results of 2009-2010 and the 2010-2011, it was evident that the teaching staff worked extra hard with the 2010-2011 lot or that the 2010-2011 group of students were extraordinarily smart (Squires 69). It is most likely that the 2010-2011 groups had smart students, as this would be easy to certify and explain. However, the first explanation could also be highly probable. In the comparison of the performance between the two classes, the 2010-2011 class was 13.58% more proficient in the MME than the 2009-2010 class (Clotfelter et al 18).

Which comparisons showed the most discrepancies between the school and the state’s scores and patterns (remember to look at both “% proficient” and “mean scaled scores”)? 

The majority of the students at the Bronx Community High School scored just around the state average in all the categories on the MME. Some of the students scored below the pass mark while others scored above the average. In five subjects, The Bronx Community High School performed extremely well in Social studies and math and less exemplary performance in Writing, Reading, and Science. This indicated that the batch of students was more proficient in sciences than in arts. The largest difference was in math where Bronx Community High School presented 6.5% more students proficient with 41.5% compared to the state average that was 30.6% (Clotfelter et al 29).

Overall, the average for math and Bronx Community High School was still low that was a sign that the Mathematic section in the MME was extremely difficult on the part of the students as compared to other subject areas where only 1 in 3 students met the proficiency standards. Another key difference was displayed in the writing tests (Squires 72). In this part of the MME test, 4.8% fewer students were scored as capable compared to the average number of students across the state. Bronx Community High School recorded 40% of the students meet the proficiency bar while the State of Arizona had 49% scoring proficient (Squires 76).

Conversely, a higher number of students were confirmed proficient on the writing test for New York and for Bronx Community High School that had 52% scoring proficient. A higher percentage of students were rated as proficient in the writing test than on the mathematics test that called into question the level of difficulty of the writing examination and the capability of those doing it (Lovat 105).

Figure 1

Differences in student demographics and special populations

            Since there is little diversity in Bronx Community High School, the main variances in subpopulations arise within the gender and low-income groups. One area that the state of New York consistently outperforms the State of Michigan is in the low-income category (Lovat 29). The evidence to this statement lies in Figure 2 below where a higher percentage of students labeled as low-income students earned the proficient level in all areas on the MME, in 2010-2011.

Figure 2

Alternatively, the economically privileged students underperformed compared to the scores in the State of Michigan. Figure 3 illustrates the disparity between Bronx Community High School and the State of Michigan’s students in all subjects except Math and Science when students are divided into financially able and low-income students (Klein 108).

Figure 3

            In the comparison of the internal scores for Bronx Community School, the low-income students outperformed the rich students by an average mean scale score of 13.24 on all five subjects of the MME with an average of 18.92% more students earning a proficient score. Social Studies stood out as the area where the largest gaps existed between the two groups of students where 61% of the low-income students were proficient as compared to the 325 of economically stable students that made a difference of about 30% (Klein 38).

Discuss key patterns, trends, gaps, holes that you observe within important comparisons and across the worksheet in general.

Owing to the design of the school, there are bound to be some loopholes in the information. There are no distinct disabled or ethnic subgroups worth mentioning. Studying the trends over the years might also be difficult because of the size of the school district. The position of the school within the county however, forms a significant trend in the results. The low-income students perform above average in every grouping tested on the MME while the reverse is true for economically stable students (Lovat 18).

Identify 1-3 primary issues that you believe your school needs to further study, attention, and work to address. Why is this so?

Low Achieving Non-Economically Disadvantaged Subgroup:

               Some low-income students still perform dismally within the Bronx High school, and this might even mean one or two students who drag the mean scale score. In such small districts, the effect of one or two dismal performance harms the overall position of the school and needs to be addressed.

Lack of Achievement in Male Reading and Writing Scores:

Males have shown lower performance averages than females in reading and writing. Male students should be encouraged to spend more time learning the basics of reading and writing.

Work cited

Clotfelter, Charles T, Helen F. Ladd, and Jacob L. Vigdor. Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects. Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2007. Accessed on 5 October 2012. Retrieved from http://www.urban.org/publications/1001104.html

Klein, Stephen P. Teaching Practices and Student Achievement: Report of First-Year Findings from the “mosaic” Study of Systemic Initiatives in Mathematics and Science. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2000. Print.

Lovat, Terry. Values Pedagogy and Student Achievement: Contemporary Research Evidence. Dordrecht: Springer, 2011. Accessed on 5 October 2012. Retrieved from http://newcastle-au.academia.edu/WendyElsworthMiller/Papers/666086/Quality_of_pedagogy_and_student_achievement_Multi-level_replication_of_authentic_pedagogy

Squires, David A. Curriculum Alignment: Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin Press, 2009. Print.