Arkansas

2004 Arkansas Middle School Identification Criteria

Grades Included: 6th and 8th Grade

Subjects Included: Literacy and Mathematics

Years Included: 2002, 2003, and 2004

The table below details the three areas of identification process issues:

Data Components – the types of information preferred in the analysis;
Model Specifications – the ways that schools are compared to one another, and;
Criteria – the specific goals schools must meet to be considered high-performing.

Performance Rate Used: % Proficient and above

Data Components	NCEA Model	Arkansas
Longitudinal Data	If longitudinal data are available, the analysis; 1) only evaluates students who were continuously enrolled on the campus since the beginning of the campus' gradespan¹, and; 2) splits the analysis of each tested grade and subject into two groups based on students' prior performance: those previously above a particular benchmark, and those previously below the benchmark the year before entering middle school.²	Longitudinal data were not available in Arkansas for this analysis, so neither continuous enrollment nor prior performance could be evaluated.
Consistent Performance	To ensure that consistently high-performing schools are identified, three years of performance data are used.	NCEA model applied.
Criterion Referenced Exams	Criterion-Referenced Tests (CRTs) are strongly preferred to Norm-Referenced Tests (NRTs).	NCEA model applied.

Model Specifications	NCEA Model	Arkansas
Similar Schools	For each tested grade and subject, and within each of the prior performance groups, schools are compared to one another based on a combination of demographic factors that include the schoolwide percentages of low income students, the school enrollment, the percent of students in the prior performance group being analyzed, and several schoolwide ethnicity percentages.³ The comparisons are weighted by the number of continuously enrolled tested students on each exam. A school's relative performance is the distance between their performance rate and the average performance rate of schools similar to them.	The model used the following demographic factors to compare schools for each year, within each subject and grade: schoolwide percentages of low income, African-American and Asian students, the school enrollment, and the grade level percent of students tested in the subject. Without longitudinal data, the number of all (not just continuously enrolled) students tested in the subject was used to weight the analysis by size.⁴
Rank Groups	After calculating a campus' relative performance (on a particular tested subject and grade and within each of the prior performance groups), it is ranked within one of five low income groups: those with 0-20% low income students on the campus, 20-40% low income students, 40-60% low income students, etc. The rank produced is called an individual performance rank.	NCEA model applied with one exception - there were not enough schools in the 0-20% and 20-40% low income groups, so these two groups were combined into one: 0-40% low income.

Criteria	NCEA Model	Arkansas
Individual Performance Rank	Each individual performance rank represents one tested grade, subject, year, and prior performance level where there were 10 or more continuously enrolled students. Each of these ranks must be at the 50th percentile or above (in the top half).	NCEA model applied with the exception that there is no longitudinal data, so there must be 10 or more tested students to calculate a rank, regardless of continuous enrollment status.
Overall Performance Rank	The overall performance rank - which is an average of all the individual performance ranks across one tested subject - must be in the top third of similar schools (a rank of 66.6 or above).	NCEA model applied - overall performance ranks had to be 66.6 or above.
Participation Rates and AYP Status	In years and subjects where Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) ratings are available, the school must meet AYP standards. In years or subjects (i.e. Writing) where AYP data are not available, at least 85% of the enrolled students had to be tested on their state's standardized exam.	While 2003 AYP data was available, so few of the schools met AYP that participation rates were substituted. Participation rates were also used for years 2002 and 2004 of the analysis.⁵
Number of Students	There must be at least 10 continuously enrolled students in one of the two prior performance groups for each grade, subject, and year in the analysis.	There were no longitudinal data available, so the number of tested students was substituted.

¹ If a school did not have continuous enrollment due to their grade span configuration, continuous district enrollment was substituted.  back
² Prior performance is based on students' performance the year before entering middle school. For a 6th - 8th grade campus, prior performance is therefore 5th grade.  back
³ These factors may vary from state to state and based on the available data.   back
⁴ There were two caveats in the data; 1) no 2002 ethnicity data was available, so 2003 schoolwide rates were used in the 2002 portion of the analysis, and; 2) the percent of students tested was not available, so a calculation was made of the number tested (collected in the spring) divided by the number in the grade (collected in the fall). If this rough calculation was over 100%, it was rounded down to 100%.  back
⁵ See endnote 3 - the percent of students tested was not available, so a calculation was made of the number tested (collected in the spring) divided by the number in the grade (collected in the fall). A small percentage of the time this number was over 100%.  back

National Center for Educational Achievement / Just for the Kids

Arkansas Affiliate

2004 Arkansas Middle School Identification Criteria