Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores
Background/Context The question of the influence of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) on achievement is an important one because many policy makers use achievement scores as the measure of success for schools, classrooms, and students. Research has demonstrated that high-poverty schools have less ex...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/016146810811001102 2023-05-15T18:31:45+02:00 Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores Burross, Heidi Legg 2008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/016146810811001102 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/016146810811001102 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education volume 110, issue 11, page 2464-2474 ISSN 0161-4681 1467-9620 Education journal-article 2008 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/016146810811001102 2022-04-14T04:37:14Z Background/Context The question of the influence of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) on achievement is an important one because many policy makers use achievement scores as the measure of success for schools, classrooms, and students. Research has demonstrated that high-poverty schools have less experienced teachers and access to fewer resources than do low-and moderate-poverty schools. Interest in fourth-grade achievement has been minimal both in research and in legislation. Research Question Do these CSR schools make gains that would not be expected without the funding and programs? Another question examined here is whether there is a decrease in performance at fourth grade. Population The population consists of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade student data from 65 schools. Research Design Data from the state's norm-referenced TerraNova test and Stanford Achievement Test, and the criterion-referenced Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) from the years 2000–2007 for the samples were compared over time and between groups. Conclusions These limited data indicate that there were occasional, observable performance decreases on student standardized test scores from third to fourth grade that often recovered somewhat in Grade 5. Because of problems with making cross-year and cross-grade comparisons using the AIMS scores, the “fourth-grade window” hypothesis could not be reliably inspected with the data available. Although gains were shown for schools that received CSR funding, their gains were similar to both high- and low-poverty schools that received no funding. Fluctuations in yearly performances may be more of an artifact of changes in test design and scoring than of student improvements. Article in Journal/Newspaper Terranova SAGE Publications (via Crossref) Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education 110 11 2464 2474 |
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Education Burross, Heidi Legg Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores |
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Education |
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Background/Context The question of the influence of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) on achievement is an important one because many policy makers use achievement scores as the measure of success for schools, classrooms, and students. Research has demonstrated that high-poverty schools have less experienced teachers and access to fewer resources than do low-and moderate-poverty schools. Interest in fourth-grade achievement has been minimal both in research and in legislation. Research Question Do these CSR schools make gains that would not be expected without the funding and programs? Another question examined here is whether there is a decrease in performance at fourth grade. Population The population consists of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade student data from 65 schools. Research Design Data from the state's norm-referenced TerraNova test and Stanford Achievement Test, and the criterion-referenced Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) from the years 2000–2007 for the samples were compared over time and between groups. Conclusions These limited data indicate that there were occasional, observable performance decreases on student standardized test scores from third to fourth grade that often recovered somewhat in Grade 5. Because of problems with making cross-year and cross-grade comparisons using the AIMS scores, the “fourth-grade window” hypothesis could not be reliably inspected with the data available. Although gains were shown for schools that received CSR funding, their gains were similar to both high- and low-poverty schools that received no funding. Fluctuations in yearly performances may be more of an artifact of changes in test design and scoring than of student improvements. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Burross, Heidi Legg |
author_facet |
Burross, Heidi Legg |
author_sort |
Burross, Heidi Legg |
title |
Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores |
title_short |
Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores |
title_full |
Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores |
title_fullStr |
Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores |
title_full_unstemmed |
Change and Continuity in Grades 3–5: Effects of Poverty and Grade on Standardized Test Scores |
title_sort |
change and continuity in grades 3–5: effects of poverty and grade on standardized test scores |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2008 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/016146810811001102 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/016146810811001102 |
genre |
Terranova |
genre_facet |
Terranova |
op_source |
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education volume 110, issue 11, page 2464-2474 ISSN 0161-4681 1467-9620 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/016146810811001102 |
container_title |
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education |
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110 |
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11 |
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2464 |
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2474 |
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