Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) provide an effective measure for evaluating students. SGPs demonstrate how quickly a student has gained academic skills over time relative to his or her “academic peers,” providing one element in a comprehensive analysis of performance that should also include scale scores and achievement levels.
The sgpdata package contains four sample data sets designed for SGP analyses. One, known as sgpData, specifies WIDE format data which can be used with lower level SGP functions like studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections; two other, known as sgpData_LONG and sgptData_LONG provide LONG formatted data needed by higher level functions like abcSGP and prepareSGP.
The Star Growth Report can generate SGP projections for individual students’ prior and current year assessments, providing useful evidence of progress toward proficiency. You can use either of these two data sets with this program by simply updating with new data from any point in time – useful when trying to track student growth towards proficiency.
SGPs are calculated relative to academic peers with comparable score histories on previous MCAS tests for a particular subject area, meaning their scaled scores might differ slightly between academic peers even when their SGPs are similar; this may occur because different students will likely have academic peer groups which reflect varied educational experiences since finishing grade 8.
SGP data sets are created annually by the state for each school, district and cohort of students in an SGP data set, released through the BAA Secure Site in January to educators who then utilize these sets to analyze them and create strategies for student success. While SGPs may potentially serve as high-stakes evaluation tools, MDE strongly suggests they only be implemented as educator assessments beginning in 2018/19 – giving three additional years for stabilizing state SGP data before high stakes evaluations become a part of educator evaluation practices.
SGPs can be useful tools in tracking student progress; however, it should be remembered that percentile rankings are only estimates. Even though students who score highly may perform consistently over time, SGPs should not be seen as indicators of academic ability or achievement.
Example: A student with a 95th percentile SGP in one subject could see their performance fluctuate over the year, so it’s essential to examine a student’s overall progress across subjects and their lifetime in order to evaluate how they’re faring. A flat or slowly rising SGP might signal they need extra support in reaching their full potential; on the other hand, rapid progress might point toward increased effort or improved instruction.