by Noah Bookman
To measure achievement in the CORE Districts, we take into account both the number of students meeting standards and how much academic growth students are making each year. We call this the “Power of Two.”
In the CORE Districts data system, educators have access to test score measurements that are clear and easy to understand, and are uniquely helpful by highlighting how schools are improving and impacting student learning. School reports, highlighting academic growth as well as academic performance and other school progress measures, are available at reports.coredistricts.org.
With three consecutive years of test results available to compare locally, the “Power of Two” is taking hold within the CORE data network. At the district and county level, data are being shared with local educators to raise awareness about the range of academic growth within each system.
The data are reassuring and motivating to educators working hard to change trajectories for the large number of traditionally underserved students in California’s public schools. This approach also provides a more finely-tuned roadmap for school and system-wide improvement.
Our data network and our learning continues to expand in large part because this growth model is so powerful. Test results no longer stand alone and we can now also examine how students are improving from year to year.
In our data system, state and locally-driven measures of school progress are connected and can better inform what we know about student achievement. Our growth model highlights the impact of educators at each school in a different way than scores alone.
The “Power of Two” helps us identify schools where students are learning significantly faster or slower than their academic peers, and it provides key information about which schools need the greatest support and intervention.
Through our partnership with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), we will continue to share our quantitative and qualitative findings with state and federal decision-makers to inform policy.
Most importantly, our data network is now open to all local educational agencies to provide a finely-tuned look at student-level academic growth and a more complete picture of school progress.