An SGP (Student Growth Percentile) ranking indicates how much students have improved from year to year compared to others with similar MCAS score histories. It differs from achievement levels, which compare a student’s actual test scores with all test results for all grade students who tested during that year at their school.
SGP provides a more complete picture of how well students understand and apply content knowledge from year to year, as well as their progress over time in academic skills development. This sets it apart from traditional measures like graduation rates that simply measure performance at one particular point in time.
Students’ MCAS score histories are used to calculate Student Growth Index scores in each subject area, often by grade but more commonly by student group such as race/ethnicity, gender, income or educational program (e.g. sheltered English immersion or multilingual learning). Students who share identical MCAS histories within an academic peer group will have identical SGP scores; however two students with different MCAS histories could still share a common SGP since SGP measures relative rather than absolute performance.
An impressive Student Growth Percentile can indicate solid academic performance; however, its meaning should not be oversimplified as this statistic cannot accurately portray the quality of teaching or learning taking place within any classroom or school. A low SGP could be caused by any number of factors including challenges the student and family have had to contend with or due to lack of motivation or effort on behalf of the student themselves.
Schools should interpret their SGP data within their overall school improvement plans and consider its results alongside indicators like student achievement levels and MCAS test performance. Furthermore, it can be beneficial to view individual grade level SGP information to gain further insight into whether their school is improving over time. In addition, looking at SGP statistics on the MCAS Results by Student Group page of School and District Profiles offers further insight into this matter; here, average SGPs by grouping such as race/ethnicity, income status or special education/sheltered English immersion etc are displayed.