HOW TO ANALYZE TEST RESULTS

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The table above shows two sets of subgroup comparisons for the Montgomery Public School system as a whole.  Results are broken down by subgroup, by grade, and by subject (Math/Reading).  Comparisons are with the Statewide results.   Each school’s table, for each year, provides comparisons with the Statewide average, as well as the averages within the Montgomery Public School system.  In this way, the results of students with comparable demographic profiles are compared with each other, so that white students are compared to the averages for other white students, statewide and within the system.  Likewise, the test results for black, non-poverty, and poverty students are also compared to averages for their peer groups in the same way.  These patterns provide a basis for targeting weaknesses in student performance.

Closing the Gap (Gold): The last three columns compare the gaps between the performance of paired subgroups (e.g. white/black, non-poverty/poverty), within the school, compared to the system and the state.  If two conditions are met, the cell related to that comparison (row) will be colored gold: both subgroups must be green, and the gap between the subgroups must be less than the system or state gap; then the gap will have a gold color.

ANALYSIS BY SUBGROUP

Each subgroup is displayed in its own quadrant of the comparison table.  Below is a the portion for white students in the Montgomery Public School System.

The subgroup next to the white subgroup is for results for black students.  The gap between those two groups is reported to the right, by subject and by grade.  In the example provided, results for white students are all either green or dark green, indicating that they are either 1 to 9.9 percent, or ten percent or more above the state average for white students statewide as shown for 3rd and 4th grade math below:

The percent in group for 3rd grade Math is 17.9 percent, meaning that white students comprise 17.9 percent of students in the system (which is also shown in the school column by default).

The percent at Level IV is 70.2 percent, which is more than the statewide average of 59.7 percent at Level IV.  The system level comparison is gray because it is being compared to itself (School=System in this case).  Results for individual schools will appear in the school column, but not in the system’s comparison report.

Results for black students are compared to the average percent Level IV for black students statewide.  The percent of black students in the Montgomery Public Schools in 3rd grade, taking the exam, is 75.6 percent in 3rd grade and 77.0 percent in 4th grade.  At 41.8 percent, the percent of black students at Level IV is 6.5 percent higher than the state average of 35.3 percent.  (Still, that is lower than the statewide average for white students, which stands at 59.7 percent.)

There are no gold cells for the Montgomery Public Schools’ system level performance because the gaps are all larger than the statewide gaps; however there are schools within the system that do have smaller gaps and above average performance.  Next, we analyze the differences between subjects.

SUBJECT LEVEL ANALYSIS

Each quadrant of the report lists the results by subject, then by grade.   In the example below, the non-poverty students are doing better in Math than in reading, as indicated by more green cells in the Math subject rows; however, a more detailed examination by grade is in order.  The table below examines result for non-poverty students.

ANALYSIS BY GRADE/SUBJECT

Each row represents a grade level for each subject.  In the example above, in Math more grade levels exceeded the percentage of non-poverty students meeting Level IV than in Reading; however, the results are weak in the 4th grade for Math as indicated by the shaded area for the 4th grade Math results.   So, within the Math subject, the 4th grade appears to be relatively weak.

Conversely, results for non-poverty students produced lower percentages of Level IV than the statewide average in the areas of reading, except for the 3rd and 5th grades.