ERIC Number: ED567495
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 8
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Mapping U.S. School District Test Score Distributions onto a Common Scale, 2008-2013
Reardon, Sean; Kalogrides, Demetra; Ho, Andrew
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness
U.S. school districts differ dramatically in their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (Reardon, Yun, & Eitle, 1999; Stroub & Richards, 2013), and districts have considerable influence over instructional and organizational practices that may affect academic achievement (Whitehurst, Chingos, & Gallaher, 2013). This paper evaluates a linking method applied to a unique national district-level dataset that may achieve the goal of national district-level comparability for research purposes. The authors fit a heteroskedastic probit model to categorical test score data from the EDFacts Initiative (U.S. Department of Education, 2015), which includes frequencies of students in coarse "achievement levels" from every school district in the U.S. from 2008 to 2012. Data from 2013 are forthcoming. Using a population of all U.S. public school students in grades 3-8 from 2008 to 2013, the authors demonstrate that reparameterization of conventional model parameters recover, with remarkable accuracy, means and standard deviations of district test scores from fine-grained data. One table and one figure are appended. [SREE documents are structured abstracts of SREE conference symposium, panel, and paper or poster submissions.]
Descriptors: School Districts, Scores, Elementary School Students, Middle School Students, Public Schools, Accuracy, National Competency Tests, Achievement Tests
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. 2040 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. Tel: 202-495-0920; Fax: 202-640-4401; e-mail: inquiries@sree.org; Web site: http://www.sree.org
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Middle Schools; Secondary Education; Junior High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: National Assessment of Educational Progress
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A