Chart Explanations

Opportunity Gap Bar Charts - These bar charts illustrate how the selected school compares to Higher Performing Schools serving similar or more disadvantaged student populations in the state.
Top Comparable Schools Charts - These charts provide detailed information, in an easy-to-read tabular format, about the selected school and the high-performing schools with which it was compared.
Multi-Year Summary Charts - Line graphs show the comparison of the selected school with the high-performing comparable schools in the state over multiple years.
District Profile - Shows the opportunity gaps for grades and subjects for schools in a district
What is an Opportunity Gap?
Continuous Enrollment (CE)
Consistent Performance Criterion Table - Chart presents all of the information used to determine if your school was consistently higher performing in any particular subjects, or across all subjects.
Consistent Performance Summary Chart - Chart plot your school's performance and variability of performance in each subject, grade, and year.
What is the College/Career Readiness Benchmark?

Opportunity Gap Bar Charts

The Opportunity Gap Bar Charts provide a quick and easy way to see a school's potential for improvement, providing a graphic representation of the school's Opportunity Gap.

The number of performance levels shown in the bars will vary from state to state. Typically, the two highest levels are shown. However, in some states, only the highest performance level will be displayed. The examples below show two standards, Proficient and Advanced.

Standard Picture: Snapshot Data

If your state does not collect the information necessary to determine continuous enrollment, your bar chart will contain two bars, as in the figure below. This is our standard snapshot picture.

Bar #1: All Tested Students

This bar shows the performance of all students in the selected grade and subject who took the test, including students who just enrolled in the school.

Bar #2: Top Comparable Schools

This bar represents the average performance of students in the highest-performing schools in the state with similar or more disadvantaged students. The highest-performing, comparable schools that make up Bar #2 are listed on the Top Comparable Schools chart.

Standard Picture: Longitudinal (or Continuous Enrollment) Data

If your state collects the data necessary for determining continuous enrollment, your standard picture bar chart will contain three bars, as shown in the figure below.

Bar #1: Students Tested

This bar shows the performance of all students in the selected grade and subject who took the test, including students who just enrolled in the school.

Bar #2: Continuously Enrolled Students Tested

This bar shows the performance of students who were continuously enrolled in the school. The difference between Bar #1 and Bar #2 indicates whether continuously enrolled students perform better than those who just entered after attending other schools. Many educators feel that this contrast provides a more accurate picture of the academic strength of a school's instructional program.

Bar #3: Top Comparable Schools

This bar represents the average performance of students who were continuously enrolled in the Higher Performing Schools in the state with similar or more disadvantaged students. For the Longitudinal data picture, the highest-performing, comparable schools that make up Bar #3 are listed on the Top Comparable Schools chart. To see how comparable schools are selected, go to "Selecting Comparable Schools."

Supplemental Charts: Best in State

The Best-in-State bar chart is the same as the Standard Picture bar chart shown for your state, except that it has one additional bar. In other words, if your standard bar chart shows two bars, the Best-in-State chart will show three, the first two of which are identical to the two bars on the standard chart. If your state's standard bar chart shows three bars, the Best-in-State will show four, the first three of which are identical to the standard bar chart.

The additional bar on this chart shows the performance level of the highest-performing schools in the state in the selected subject and grade. These schools, the best in the state, may not be comparable to the selected school. All schools shown in this bar had at least 30 continuously enrolled tested students, and they tested at least 85% of their students in the selected grade and subject. However, they may have fewer low-income and limited English-proficient students than the selected school.

Supplemental Charts: Performance by Subgroup

These supplemental charts are not available for every state. When available, they show the performance of various subgroups of students (by ethnicity, economic level, etc.). If we have Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Goal information for the selected grade and subject, the AYP Goal will be shown as a line on the chart, so that the performance of each subgroup can be compared to that goal.

If your state is able to provide longitudinal data, you may have two separate "Performance by Subgroup"charts, one showing "All Students" and the other showing "Continuously Enrolled Students."

Top Comparable Schools Charts

Standard Picture: Snapshot or Longitudinal Data

These charts provide detailed information about the selected school and the high-performing schools with which it was compared. The data shown for the high-performing schools in these charts corresponds to the data shown in the right-most bar in the Opportunity Gap Bar Charts standard picture (Bar #2 for snapshot data, Bar #3 for longitudinal data).

The standard charts show some combination of the information listed below. Not all of this information will be available for all states.

School Name (Grade Span) District Name

The name of the school, its grade span (lowest and highest grades served), and the district name will always be shown in the first column.

Performance Level Percentages

The next one or two columns show the performance levels of the selected school and the highest performing comparable schools. The number of performance levels shown will vary from state to state. The two highest levels are usually shown. However, in some states only the highest performance level will be displayed.

School-wide Information

The following information is provided, when available, on each school:

% Econ Dis - percentage of students who are classified as economically disadvantaged based on their participation in the free and reduced price lunch program.
% ELL - percentage of English language learners.

Selected Grade & Subject Information

The remainder of the columns in the table show information on the students tested in the grade and subject that you selected. If longitudinal (continuous enrollment) data is available, it will be shown in this section of columns as well. Some, or all, of the following information may be displayed.

Number of students enrolled in this grade/subject at the school
Number of students taking the test
Percentage of students taking the test. This percentage will not be calculated if the enrollment data is from the fall and test data is from the spring as enrollment counts can change significantly from fall to spring.

The following columns will only be shown for longitudinal (or continuous enrollment) data:

Number of students continuously enrolled
Percentage of tested students who were also continuously enrolled. A low number in this column (i.e., below 50%) indicates that the school serves a highly mobile population.
Percentage of low income students who were tested and also classified as continuously enrolled
Percentage of English language learners who were tested and also classified as continuously enrolled

Summary information (provided at the bottom of the chart):

Average of Top Comparable Schools

This is the weighted average score of the top comparable schools listed on this chart.

Opportunity Gap

The opportunity gap will be shown for one performance level. This gap is equal to the percentage of students performing at that level at the selected school (first row) minus the "Average of Top Comparable Schools" score shown in the same column. A negative number indicates that this school is not doing as well as the highest performing schools.

Number of schools in pool

This shows the total number of schools in the state, with equally or more disadvantaged students, to which the selected school was compared. Only the top three, five or ten schools from this pool will be shown on this chart, depending on the size of the pool.

Supplemental Charts: Best in State

The "Best in State" supplemental chart compares the selected school to the top schools in the state, including some that may not be comparable to the selected school. The information in this chart is presented in the same format as the Standard Picture described above, showing Top Comparable Schools.

Multi-Year Summary Charts

Standard Picture: Snapshot or Longitudinal Data

This chart compares the selected school with the highest-performing comparable schools in the state over multiple years. These charts are available for each subject and grade. The list of top schools with which your school is compared changes from year to year. If the gap narrows over time, then the selected school is catching up with the best comparable schools in the state.

The table below the Multi-Year Summary chart provides additional information on the selected school. If a school's performance changes significantly from year to year, this chart might help answer some questions, such as: Did the percentage of economically disadvantaged students change? How many schools were in the comparison pool from which the top comparable schools were chosen?

The standard Just for the Kids Multi-Year chart provides five years of data on a school when that information is available.

Supplemental Charts: Best in State

This chart compares the selected school with the highest-performing comparable schools, as well as with the top schools in the state, over multiple years.

The schools identified as the "Top of All Schools" had at least 30 tested students, and they tested at least 85% of their students in the selected grade and subject. However, they may have fewer low-income and limited English proficient students than the selected school.

Supplemental Charts: Performance by Subgroup

These supplemental charts are not available for every state. When available, they show the performance of various subgroups of students (by ethnicity, low-income, etc.) across multiple years.

If your state is able to provide longitudinal data, you may have two separate 'Performance by Subgroup' charts. One showing "All Students" and the other showing "Continuously Enrolled Students".

District Profile

The district profile shows a list of all the schools within a district along with the opportunity gap for each grade and subject that school is tested in. The opportunity gaps are shown as symbols that represent how big or small that particular opportunity gap is for that school, grade, and subject.

The Opportunity Gap (OpGap) Explained

The Opportunity Gap, or OpGap, is the term we use to refer to the difference between the percentage of students meeting the state standard at the selected school and the average percentage meeting that standard in the top comparable schools.

A school's opportunity gap is positive when its performance is better than the average of the top comparable schools, or negative when its performance is below the average. If your OpGap is within 10 points of your top comparable schools, your performance is on target. If you are more than 10 points below your top comparables, you have an opportunity for improvement.

Continuous Enrollment

Continuous enrollment means that a student has been continuously enrolled in the same school and district for three years or more. If the school's grade configuration does not allow for three years of continuous enrollment, as in the case of a school with only grades 4-6, or grades 7-8, then the students must be enrolled in that school for the maximum number of years that the grade configuration will allow, and must be in the same district for three years.

Information on the performance of students who have been at the school for three years or more, which many educators feel is a better picture of the school's academic strength, is part of the standard JFTK School Report and becomes available when the state collects, and can provide us with, annual enrollment data, thereby allowing us to link records of individual students over time.

College/Career Readiness Benchmark

Opportunity Gaps are identified based on NCEA's College and Career Readiness (CCR) Benchmarks for reading and mathematics in Grades 3-11. These benchmarks are based on research conducted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Education Agency linking student scores on the Grade 11 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) to the same students' scores on the ACT, SAT, and the Texas Higher Education Assessment (THEA), a test used to assess students' need for remediation in higher education. Based on this information, NCEA identified a scale score of 2300 on the Grade 11 mathematics and English Language Arts TAKS tests as a suitable benchmark for college readiness. By comparison, the passing score is 2100, TEA's minimal college readiness benchmark is set at 2200, and the Commended standard is set at 2400.

Scale scores of comparable difficulty were identified in grades 3-10 based on a methodology similar to that used to calculate the Texas Learning Index (TLI) on the old TAAS test. These scores indicate that a student is on the "college readiness ramp" - the student need only make about a year's academic growth every year in order to attain the college readiness benchmark in Grade 11. For a more complete discussion of this methodology and of the reasons for focusing on high standards of college and career readiness, see the NCEA Policy Brief Identifying Appropriate College Readiness Standards for All Students. Research by ACT, Inc. indicates that the skills that prepare students well for college also prepare them well for skilled careers.

Opportunity Gaps for writing, science, and social studies are based on TEA's Commended Standard, as no data were available for establishing CCR Benchmarks in those subjects. Students who reach the Commended standard in these subjects have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in those subjects.

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The Just For the Kids - California leadership team includes William Hauck, President, California Business Roundtable; Charles Reed, Chancellor, California State University; and James Lanich, President, California Business for Education Excellence. Contact: Ken Sorey Development Director, Just for the Kids-California For additional information on becoming a Just for the Kids state affiliate, click here.	Chart Explanations Opportunity Gap Bar Charts - These bar charts illustrate how the selected school compares to Higher Performing Schools serving similar or more disadvantaged student populations in the state. Top Comparable Schools Charts - These charts provide detailed information, in an easy-to-read tabular format, about the selected school and the high-performing schools with which it was compared. Multi-Year Summary Charts - Line graphs show the comparison of the selected school with the high-performing comparable schools in the state over multiple years. District Profile - Shows the opportunity gaps for grades and subjects for schools in a district What is an Opportunity Gap? Continuous Enrollment (CE) Consistent Performance Criterion Table - Chart presents all of the information used to determine if your school was consistently higher performing in any particular subjects, or across all subjects. Consistent Performance Summary Chart - Chart plot your school's performance and variability of performance in each subject, grade, and year. What is the College/Career Readiness Benchmark? Opportunity Gap Bar Charts The Opportunity Gap Bar Charts provide a quick and easy way to see a school's potential for improvement, providing a graphic representation of the school's Opportunity Gap. The number of performance levels shown in the bars will vary from state to state. Typically, the two highest levels are shown. However, in some states, only the highest performance level will be displayed. The examples below show two standards, Proficient and Advanced. Standard Picture: Snapshot Data If your state does not collect the information necessary to determine continuous enrollment, your bar chart will contain two bars, as in the figure below. This is our standard snapshot picture. Bar #1: All Tested Students This bar shows the performance of all students in the selected grade and subject who took the test, including students who just enrolled in the school. Bar #2: Top Comparable Schools This bar represents the average performance of students in the highest-performing schools in the state with similar or more disadvantaged students. The highest-performing, comparable schools that make up Bar #2 are listed on the Top Comparable Schools chart. Standard Picture: Longitudinal (or Continuous Enrollment) Data If your state collects the data necessary for determining continuous enrollment, your standard picture bar chart will contain three bars, as shown in the figure below. Bar #1: Students Tested This bar shows the performance of all students in the selected grade and subject who took the test, including students who just enrolled in the school. Bar #2: Continuously Enrolled Students Tested This bar shows the performance of students who were continuously enrolled in the school. The difference between Bar #1 and Bar #2 indicates whether continuously enrolled students perform better than those who just entered after attending other schools. Many educators feel that this contrast provides a more accurate picture of the academic strength of a school's instructional program. Bar #3: Top Comparable Schools This bar represents the average performance of students who were continuously enrolled in the Higher Performing Schools in the state with similar or more disadvantaged students. For the Longitudinal data picture, the highest-performing, comparable schools that make up Bar #3 are listed on the Top Comparable Schools chart. To see how comparable schools are selected, go to "Selecting Comparable Schools." Supplemental Charts: Best in State The Best-in-State bar chart is the same as the Standard Picture bar chart shown for your state, except that it has one additional bar. In other words, if your standard bar chart shows two bars, the Best-in-State chart will show three, the first two of which are identical to the two bars on the standard chart. If your state's standard bar chart shows three bars, the Best-in-State will show four, the first three of which are identical to the standard bar chart. The additional bar on this chart shows the performance level of the highest-performing schools in the state in the selected subject and grade. These schools, the best in the state, may not be comparable to the selected school. All schools shown in this bar had at least 30 continuously enrolled tested students, and they tested at least 85% of their students in the selected grade and subject. However, they may have fewer low-income and limited English-proficient students than the selected school. Supplemental Charts: Performance by Subgroup These supplemental charts are not available for every state. When available, they show the performance of various subgroups of students (by ethnicity, economic level, etc.). If we have Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Goal information for the selected grade and subject, the AYP Goal will be shown as a line on the chart, so that the performance of each subgroup can be compared to that goal. If your state is able to provide longitudinal data, you may have two separate "Performance by Subgroup"charts, one showing "All Students" and the other showing "Continuously Enrolled Students." Top Comparable Schools Charts Standard Picture: Snapshot or Longitudinal Data These charts provide detailed information about the selected school and the high-performing schools with which it was compared. The data shown for the high-performing schools in these charts corresponds to the data shown in the right-most bar in the Opportunity Gap Bar Charts standard picture (Bar #2 for snapshot data, Bar #3 for longitudinal data). The standard charts show some combination of the information listed below. Not all of this information will be available for all states. School Name (Grade Span) District Name The name of the school, its grade span (lowest and highest grades served), and the district name will always be shown in the first column. Performance Level Percentages The next one or two columns show the performance levels of the selected school and the highest performing comparable schools. The number of performance levels shown will vary from state to state. The two highest levels are usually shown. However, in some states only the highest performance level will be displayed. School-wide Information The following information is provided, when available, on each school: % Econ Dis - percentage of students who are classified as economically disadvantaged based on their participation in the free and reduced price lunch program. % ELL - percentage of English language learners. Selected Grade & Subject Information The remainder of the columns in the table show information on the students tested in the grade and subject that you selected. If longitudinal (continuous enrollment) data is available, it will be shown in this section of columns as well. Some, or all, of the following information may be displayed. Number of students enrolled in this grade/subject at the school Number of students taking the test Percentage of students taking the test. This percentage will not be calculated if the enrollment data is from the fall and test data is from the spring as enrollment counts can change significantly from fall to spring. The following columns will only be shown for longitudinal (or continuous enrollment) data: Number of students continuously enrolled Percentage of tested students who were also continuously enrolled. A low number in this column (i.e., below 50%) indicates that the school serves a highly mobile population. Percentage of low income students who were tested and also classified as continuously enrolled Percentage of English language learners who were tested and also classified as continuously enrolled Summary information (provided at the bottom of the chart): Average of Top Comparable Schools This is the weighted average score of the top comparable schools listed on this chart. Opportunity Gap The opportunity gap will be shown for one performance level. This gap is equal to the percentage of students performing at that level at the selected school (first row) minus the "Average of Top Comparable Schools" score shown in the same column. A negative number indicates that this school is not doing as well as the highest performing schools. Number of schools in pool This shows the total number of schools in the state, with equally or more disadvantaged students, to which the selected school was compared. Only the top three, five or ten schools from this pool will be shown on this chart, depending on the size of the pool. Supplemental Charts: Best in State The "Best in State" supplemental chart compares the selected school to the top schools in the state, including some that may not be comparable to the selected school. The information in this chart is presented in the same format as the Standard Picture described above, showing Top Comparable Schools. Multi-Year Summary Charts Standard Picture: Snapshot or Longitudinal Data This chart compares the selected school with the highest-performing comparable schools in the state over multiple years. These charts are available for each subject and grade. The list of top schools with which your school is compared changes from year to year. If the gap narrows over time, then the selected school is catching up with the best comparable schools in the state. The table below the Multi-Year Summary chart provides additional information on the selected school. If a school's performance changes significantly from year to year, this chart might help answer some questions, such as: Did the percentage of economically disadvantaged students change? How many schools were in the comparison pool from which the top comparable schools were chosen? The standard Just for the Kids Multi-Year chart provides five years of data on a school when that information is available. Supplemental Charts: Best in State This chart compares the selected school with the highest-performing comparable schools, as well as with the top schools in the state, over multiple years. The schools identified as the "Top of All Schools" had at least 30 tested students, and they tested at least 85% of their students in the selected grade and subject. However, they may have fewer low-income and limited English proficient students than the selected school. Supplemental Charts: Performance by Subgroup These supplemental charts are not available for every state. When available, they show the performance of various subgroups of students (by ethnicity, low-income, etc.) across multiple years. If your state is able to provide longitudinal data, you may have two separate 'Performance by Subgroup' charts. One showing "All Students" and the other showing "Continuously Enrolled Students". District Profile The district profile shows a list of all the schools within a district along with the opportunity gap for each grade and subject that school is tested in. The opportunity gaps are shown as symbols that represent how big or small that particular opportunity gap is for that school, grade, and subject. The Opportunity Gap (OpGap) Explained The Opportunity Gap, or OpGap, is the term we use to refer to the difference between the percentage of students meeting the state standard at the selected school and the average percentage meeting that standard in the top comparable schools. A school's opportunity gap is positive when its performance is better than the average of the top comparable schools, or negative when its performance is below the average. If your OpGap is within 10 points of your top comparable schools, your performance is on target. If you are more than 10 points below your top comparables, you have an opportunity for improvement. Continuous Enrollment Continuous enrollment means that a student has been continuously enrolled in the same school and district for three years or more. If the school's grade configuration does not allow for three years of continuous enrollment, as in the case of a school with only grades 4-6, or grades 7-8, then the students must be enrolled in that school for the maximum number of years that the grade configuration will allow, and must be in the same district for three years. Information on the performance of students who have been at the school for three years or more, which many educators feel is a better picture of the school's academic strength, is part of the standard JFTK School Report and becomes available when the state collects, and can provide us with, annual enrollment data, thereby allowing us to link records of individual students over time. College/Career Readiness Benchmark Opportunity Gaps are identified based on NCEA's College and Career Readiness (CCR) Benchmarks for reading and mathematics in Grades 3-11. These benchmarks are based on research conducted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Education Agency linking student scores on the Grade 11 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) to the same students' scores on the ACT, SAT, and the Texas Higher Education Assessment (THEA), a test used to assess students' need for remediation in higher education. Based on this information, NCEA identified a scale score of 2300 on the Grade 11 mathematics and English Language Arts TAKS tests as a suitable benchmark for college readiness. By comparison, the passing score is 2100, TEA's minimal college readiness benchmark is set at 2200, and the Commended standard is set at 2400. Scale scores of comparable difficulty were identified in grades 3-10 based on a methodology similar to that used to calculate the Texas Learning Index (TLI) on the old TAAS test. These scores indicate that a student is on the "college readiness ramp" - the student need only make about a year's academic growth every year in order to attain the college readiness benchmark in Grade 11. For a more complete discussion of this methodology and of the reasons for focusing on high standards of college and career readiness, see the NCEA Policy Brief Identifying Appropriate College Readiness Standards for All Students. Research by ACT, Inc. indicates that the skills that prepare students well for college also prepare them well for skilled careers. Opportunity Gaps for writing, science, and social studies are based on TEA's Commended Standard, as no data were available for establishing CCR Benchmarks in those subjects. Students who reach the Commended standard in these subjects have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in those subjects.

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