Growth to Standard
Considerations for defining a year’s worth of growth
Damian Betebenner
Center for Assessment
January 24th, 2023
Definitions
• Each student for whom growth is calculated (i.e., an SGP) is also
has a growth target (i.e., SGP_TARGET) calculated.
• If the student’s prior achievement is not proficient, then the
SGP_TARGET is the growth target to catch-up to proficiency
within 3 years or by the end of testing (time frame can be
changed depending upon policy)
• If the student’s prior achievement is proficient, then the
SGP_TARGET is the growth target to keep-up to proficiency
for the next 3 years or by the end of testing.
Definitions
• The SGP_TARGET:
• Isn’t a guarantee that the student reaching the target will catch-up/
keep-up.
• It’s a one-year installment on a multi-year plan to catch-up/keep-up.
• Requires an SGP in order to make a determination of catch-up/keep-up.
• Will take on extremely high (above 90) or extremely low values (below
10) for students who are low achievers and high achievers, respectively.
• Can be converted to a RICAS scale score if desired.
Decision Matrix: Catch-Up/Keep-Up
SGP ≥ SGPTarget SGP < SGPTarget
Prior Achievement
Catching Up Not Catching Up
Not Proficient
Prior Achievement
Keeping Up Not Keeping Up
Proficient
Catch Up/Keep Up Drawback
• Though a technically correct approach, I believe using SGP
and SGP_TARGET to communicate growth/learning goals
suffers from the following problems:
• Difficult to communicate and comprehend, especially for
non-technical stakeholders
• Difficulty in communication inhibits stakeholder use of the
data
• 1 to 99 scale communicates precision that isn’t justified.
A Year’s Worth of Learning
Year’s Worth of Learning
• Another approach that “coarsens” SGP and SGP_TARGET and
utilizes the language of a “year’s worth of learning”.
• The terms “a year’s worth of learning” is often well received
by non-technical stakeholders even though it is not well
defined. We propose the following definitions:
• At or near a year’s worth of learning: 30 ≤ SGP ≤ 65
• Below a year’s worth of learning: SGP < 30
• Above a year’s worth of learning: SGP > 65
Year’s Worth of Learning
• Based upon these three categories of growth/learning, students
are classified in two ways:
• Category 1: Growth demonstrated in current year
• Category 2: Growth needed/desired in current year
• Note, the two categories are analogous to SGP and SGP_TARGET
except they are expressed in terms of the three “year’s worth of
learning” levels instead of the 99 different percentiles.
• Note: Growth needed is to either catch up or keep up. That
distinction is not made explicit.
Decision Matrix: Year’s Worth of Learning
Learning Observed
SGP ≥<SGP
1 Year
Target ≈ 1Year SGP < >SGP
1Year
Target
Definitely
Learning Needed
< 1 Year Enough More than
more than
(but not good) enough
enough
≈ 1Year More than
Not enough Enough
enough
> 1Year Definitely
Not enough Enough
not enough
Year’s Worth of Learning
• The qualifiers (not enough, enough, definitely not enough) are
rough placeholders.
• The goal of systemic improvement is to diminish (over time) the
percentage of students demonstrating less than a year’s worth of
learning and to maximize (especially for the lowest achieving
students) the percentage of students demonstrating more than a
year’s worth of growth.
• Note: All of the calculations are done behind the scenes with SGP
and SGP_TARGET, but the language used to communicate the
results is “year’s worth of learning”.
About this copy
Growth to Standard — Rhode Island Department of Education, January 18, 2023.
This is an image-based copy of the original Keynote slides; builds and animations are flattened.