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[quote=Anonymous]Yes, you have the basics right. Adding up the % of kids who scored "proficient" with the % or kids who scored "advanced" you get the total % of kids at or above what is considered "grade level" in any given year. "Basics" doesn't cut it. But here are some things you need to take into account while 'reading' those stats:
- The students actually score on a scale, not into four categories. Say, one could have 267 points out of, say, a total of 340, whereby 268 might be considered "advanced" but 267 is considered only "proficient". So you're looking at much simplified data. I personally would much rather see the distribution because it matters on what end of the "basics" or the "proficient" scale the students are.
- It's important to recognize that the DC-CAS has had something of a life of its own, changing the type of questions and the scope of what's being tested every year and unpredictably. So a school could be teaching great things, just not exactly what's going to be tested. Charter schools deplore that most because it takes away their freedom of what kids should know in any given year. (E.g. there is much debate on when to introduce fractions or do long divisions. If the DC-CAS tests for that at, say end of 3rd grade but a school has been set to do much of that in the beginning of 4th grade, it's not like those kids are stupid. They just haven't had the material yet. The Common Core Standards, at last, has at least eliminated the guesswork that teachers and principals have had to do up until now. It'll take a while for lesson plans to finally catch up with that.
- DC made it a point to set the bar very high. So "proficient" (btw a term many school advocates deplore) is actually, contrary to what the term may imply, quite good and difficult to get.
- Lastly, how other children score on the DC-CAS says nothing about how your child will score on the DC-CAS and really nothing either about how much your child will learn. My child went into a school that had no children recorded as "advanced" and very few as "proficient" but by the time s/he got to the testing grades (3rd and above), s/he scored "advanced" nevertheless, barely in the first couple of years but solidly thereafter, but never feeling "this is a piece of cake".
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