Texas SGP Explainer

Understanding Student Growth Percentiles in Texas

Achievement, growth, and the role of prior administrations

Damian W. Betebenner
National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment

Renaissance Texas SGP Conversations

The Two Questions

Question 1 How can a high-performing student have an SGP below 50?

The short answer: achievement and growth are related, but they are not the same thing.

Question 2 Why does the calculation use an additional prior administration?

The short answer: more history helps make the comparison fairer and more stable.

SGP is a relative growth measure. It asks how much a student grew compared with students who had similar prior achievement histories.

Why This Matters in Texas

Texas users need a clear, non-technical explanation.

  • SGP is receiving closer attention because it can be used as a growth component in TIA-related conversations.
  • District leaders want to know whether the calculation is fair.
  • Educators need language that separates student achievement status from student growth.
  • The explanation should be durable beyond one specific policy moment.

Texas bookends, reusable core.

The opening and closing can speak directly to Texas and TIA. The middle should be a reusable SGP explanation that stands on its own.

Stakeholder Review Video Concept and Narrative Arc A short narrated explainer with Texas bookends and a reusable SGP core.

Video Brief for Review

Working title Understanding Student Growth Percentiles in Texas

Achievement, growth, and the role of prior administrations.

Audience Texas district leaders and educators

Assessment coordinators, TIA leads, principals, instructional leaders, and educators who need a clear non-technical explanation.

Length Approximately 4 to 6 minutes

Short enough for back-to-school training, district onboarding, TIA support, or CSM follow-up.

Production style Polished narrated explainer

Friendly graphics, simple motion, clean narration, minimal notation, and no webinar feel.

Core Communication Goal

The video should leave Texas users with two durable ideas.

  • SGP compares students to academically similar peers.
  • SGP is not a reward or penalty for being high- or low-achieving.
  • The additional prior administration helps make fall-to-spring growth comparisons fairer.

Stakeholder check

Does this goal match the explanation Texas users most need before they trust and use SGP results?

Core message: SGP is designed to compare students with similar achievement histories, and prior administrations help make that comparison more stable and fair.

Narrative Arc

1 Open in Texas

Name the TIA context and acknowledge why educators are asking how SGP works.

2 Separate achievement from growth

Clarify that achievement is where a student is; growth is progress compared with academic peers.

3 Explain prior administrations

Use the prior spring -> fall -> current spring timeline to show why additional context improves fairness.

4 Close carefully

Return to Texas, reinforce defensible interpretation, and avoid overpromising approval or validation outcomes.

Review Questions for Stakeholders

Content fit

  • Are these the right two user questions?
  • Is the Texas/TIA framing specific enough without becoming too policy-dependent?
  • Is the grade-equivalent caution worth including in the main video?

Production fit

  • Does 4 to 6 minutes feel right for the audience?
  • Should the visual tone be more training-oriented or more public-facing?
  • What language needs approval before narration is recorded?

Decision point: Align on the video brief and narrative arc before polishing the script or producing animated visuals.

Core Idea Achievement and Growth Are Different An achievement score tells us where a student is. An SGP tells us how growth compares with academic peers.

Achievement Answers “Where?”

Achievement Where is the student now?

Achievement describes a student’s performance at a point in time.

Growth How much progress was made?

Growth describes progress over time, interpreted against an appropriate comparison group.

Achievement snapshot

Lower achievement Higher achievement Student B Student A

Achievement locates each student on the score scale at one administration.

A high achievement score tells us where a student is right now. It does not, by itself, show how much the student grew compared with similar students.

Growth Answers “Compared With Whom?”

SGP compares students to academic peers.

  • Peers are students with similar prior achievement histories.
  • The comparison is not simply “who has the highest score?”
  • The comparison is “who grew more, given where students started?”

SGP does not ask whether a student is high or low performing. It asks how much the student grew compared with students with a similar achievement history.

Lower prior achievement

Middle prior achievement

Higher prior achievement

SGP Runs From 1 to 99 for All Students

1-34 Lower relative growth

Lower than many academic peers with similar prior achievement.

35-65 Typical relative growth

Near the middle of the academic peer comparison group.

66-99 Higher relative growth

Higher than many academic peers with similar prior achievement.

A useful growth measure gives students at every achievement level the opportunity to show low, typical, or high growth.

High Performing, Lower Relative Growth

A student can remain high-achieving and still have an SGP below 50.

  • The student is still performing at a high level.
  • The SGP says growth was lower than the median growth of academic peers.
  • That is a comparison statement, not a statement that the student is low-achieving.

Similar high-achieving peers

High-achieving student

Plain-language interpretation: The student is still high-performing, but grew less than similar high-performing students.

Grade Equivalents Can Mislead

Grade-equivalent changes are not uniform across the scale.

  • A 0.6 grade-equivalent increase can mean different things depending on where a student starts.
  • The same-looking change may be common for one group and uncommon for another.
  • Grade equivalents are a poor substitute for a peer-based growth comparison.

Interpretation caution

SGP uses comparisons among students with similar achievement histories rather than expecting the same grade-equivalent increase for everyone.

Use this slide briefly. The main deck should not get pulled into a detailed grade-equivalent explanation.

Fair Comparison Why Prior Administrations Matter The additional prior is not an extra hurdle. It gives the model more context about the student’s achievement history.

Fall-to-Spring Timeline

Prior Spring Additional context before the current year

->

Fall Starting point for the current year

->

Current Spring Outcome for the current growth period

Preferred language: say “additional prior administration,” not “third score.” The point is the student’s achievement history, not an isolated visible score.

Why the Additional Prior Helps

The fall score can carry information from outside the current instructional period.

  • Summer learning loss
  • Summer enrichment
  • Tutoring or family resources
  • Unusual prior-year growth patterns

Fairness argument

The additional prior helps reduce the chance that teachers or schools are advantaged or disadvantaged by patterns that occurred before the current instructional period.

Same Fall Score, Different Histories

Student A

Prior spring was much higher, then fall dropped.

The fall starting point may reflect summer loss or another prior pattern.

Student B

Prior spring and fall were similar.

The fall starting point may reflect a more stable achievement path.

Two students can have the same fall score but different achievement histories. The additional prior helps the comparison account for that difference.

Cleaner, Fairer Interpretation

The additional prior is used to improve the quality of the comparison.

  • It does not make high growth impossible.
  • It does not penalize students for having more data.
  • It helps define a more appropriate academic peer group.

Public-facing message

The additional prior administration is used so that students with similar achievement histories are compared more fairly, and so that educators are not advantaged or disadvantaged by patterns outside the current instructional period.

Consistent Administration Matters

Like any growth measure, SGP depends on valid, comparable data.

  • Testing conditions should be consistent across administrations.
  • Changes in assistance or administration practices can distort apparent growth.
  • Local data practices still matter.

Careful interpretation

SGP is most meaningful when assessments are administered consistently. Consistent conditions help ensure that growth reflects student learning rather than changes in the testing environment.

What This Does Not Claim

Not automatic approval

SGP can support defensible growth evidence, but it does not guarantee approval in any local or state process.

Not a replacement for data quality

The metric is only as interpretable as the assessment records and administration conditions behind it.

Not just for TIA

The core explanation is useful for broader district conversations about student progress.

Texas Takeaway

For Texas educators, the main point is straightforward.

SGP is not simply another achievement score. It is a growth measure designed to compare students fairly with academic peers.

The use of prior administrations, including an additional prior administration when available, helps make that comparison more stable, more interpretable, and more useful for understanding student progress.

Achievement: Where is the student?

Growth: How much progress did the student make compared with similar students?

Prior administrations: What context helps make that comparison fair?

Understanding Student Growth Percentiles in Texas

Questions and Discussion

Achievement, growth, and fair comparison

Damian W. Betebenner
National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment

Renaissance Texas SGP Conversations