Three Key Takeaways From Middle Schools with High Student Growth
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Top-Growth Middle Schools Earning High Schoolwide Growth Scores Achieve Higher Subgroup Scores
By: Sarah Potter, APR, Misti Jeffers, Ph.D., and Ashley Donaldson Burle
Policymakers, educators, and parents need to know and understand the progress students and schools are making from year to year. School-level assessment results are most often publicly reported as the fraction of students that earn scores of proficient or advanced on state assessments. But these scores don’t tell the whole story. Proficiency rates don’t show where a student started at the beginning of the year or how a teacher helped them learn throughout the school year. Examining a measure of progress over time—known as a student growth score—is more helpful than the point-in-time student achievement of the proficiency rate.
The PRiME Center recently published the Missouri Statewide Student Growth Report, which highlights and applauds the excellent growth that is occurring in many schools throughout the state. In the report, we used the Missouri Growth Model measure and translated the state’s scale to help educators and the public better understand its significance. Our previous blogs focused on elementary schools and eleMiddle schools earning top PRiME Growth Scores in the report.
For this blog, we focus on middle schools achieving high PRiME Growth Scores. Specifically, we highlight key takeaways and describe how middle school PRiME Growth Scores compare to elementary and eleMiddle schools achieving top 20 status. Middle schools include schools that range from sixth grade through twelfth grade. These schools have three years of tests included in the Growth Scores in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. There are 504 middle schools with PRiME Growth Scores located across 399 districts and nine regions in Missouri. Notably, there are less than half as many middle schools than elementary schools (1,026).
Here are three key takeaways from the Missouri Statewide Student Growth Report on eleMiddle schools with outstanding student growth:
1. Most of the top middle schools appear on more than one top-growth list.
Our rankings feature 40 different middle schools, most of which appear on more than one top-growth list. Six middle schools appear on all four top 20 rankings for schoolwide and subgroup achievement in ELA and math. Three of those schools are in the Southwestern region of the state, including Greenfield High, Marionville Middle, and Spokane Middle. The other three schools include Brunswick High in Northeastern Missouri, Crest Ridge High in the Western Plains, and Licking High in the Missouri Ozarks. Each of these schools are serving students well and can serve as models for other districts.
2. Top-growth middle schools earning high schoolwide Growth Scores achieve higher subgroup scores.
Similar to what we found for eleMiddle schools, the top-ranked middle schools for both ELA (Allen Village Junior) and math schoolwide (Northwest High) also earn the top spots for ELA and math for the subgroup with even higher scores. For ELA, Allen Village Junior’s subgroup Growth Score was 103.8 compared to 102.3 for schoolwide growth. For math Growth Scores, Northwest High earned the highest subgroup Growth Score of 107 compared to 105.2 for schoolwide growth. Greenfield High, Marionville Middle, and Licking High are other high-growth ELA middle schools in both schoolwide and subgroup Growth Scores, but earned higher Growth Scores for the subgroup category. In math, Greenfield High, South Nodaway High, and Eminence High follow this same trend. These schools are serving students well schoolwide, but serving students in the subgroup, those traditionally underserved, particularly well. The educators in these schools are working hard to shrink achievement and opportunity gaps.
3. Middle schools receiving top PRiME Growth Scores have a wide variety of proficiency rates.
We see a wide variety of proficiency rates from middle schools earning top PRiME Growth Scores. This same trend was seen for both elementary and eleMiddle schools across the state. Only two middle schools ranked with the highest Growth Scores in the state, Dadeville Sr. High and Leeton Middle, have a proficiency rate higher than 70. We also see that middle schools, like Central High in the Springfield R-XII School District and Clarkton High in the Clarkton C-4 School District, have low proficiency rates under 30. This is an important reminder that proficiency rates do not determine growth. Importantly, high growth can and does occur at schools with all proficiency levels and all top-growth schools should be recognized for their efforts to move students forward.
To learn more about how we created the PRiME Growth Score and to see all of our lists of the top schools for student growth, read the full report by clicking the button below.
