Background: The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Reports. OSPI must make a number of specified reports available on the Internet, subject to the availability of the data. The reports include the improvement on the statewide assessments computed as both a percentage change and absolute change on a scale score metric by district, by school, and by teacher.

Washington State Assessments. Under federal and state law, all school districts must administer assessments in mathematics, and reading and writing or English language arts in grades three through eight and in certain high school grades; and in science once in elementary school, once in middle school, and once in high school. Student performance is reported relative to the four performance standards established by the State Board of Education:

Level 4: Advanced – exceeding state standard;
Level 3: Proficient – meeting state standard;
Level 2: Basic – not meeting state standard; and
Level 1: Below Basic – not meeting state standard.

Norm-Referenced Percentile. Student performance on assessments may also be reported relative to the performance of other test takers on a scale from 1–100 as a percentile rank. This means that a student’s score is reported as the percentage of students who had scores equal to or lower than the student. For instance if a student assessment score is equal to or higher than 80 percent of the other test takers, then the student scores at the eightieth percentile.

Student Growth Percentile (SGP). Student growth is a measure of student performance on assessments over time. SGPs were developed to provide a norm‐referenced method for describing student growth. Students who perform similarly on an assessment are compared to each other after taking the next assessment. This creates an individual student's cohort. A student's growth is compared to the growth of the other students in the student's cohort. The comparative change is the student's growth percentile. Separate SGP determinations are made for reading and mathematics. Results from student growth analyses can be used to calculate growth trajectories for each student. These trajectories indicate possible future rates of growth and can be used to assess whether the student is making adequate growth and sufficient academic progress.

Summary of Bill: A legislative goal to maintain the privacy of individual student data, while making data available to the public, is provided. Legislative intent to make results on the statewide assessments available as norm-referenced results and as SGPs to accomplish the legislative goal is provided.

To the extent the data is available, OSPI must make the results on the statewide assessments computed as norm-referenced results and as SGPs where possible.

Staff Summary of Public Testimony: PRO: OSPI is using new data suppression rules and those rules are very conservative with good intent. But under the new rules 48 percent of high school student assessment results are completely suppressed and this has been retroactively applied. It is not just small schools that are affected. This bill is a technical work around to provide more meaningful data at the school level relative to other schools while still maintaining the protections of not reporting when there are fewer than ten students in a subgroup. Norm-reference reporting of scores is also better for conducting trend analysis and considered best practice for program evaluation and significance testing. This will also smooth the scores as we transition to the new state assessments.

OTHER: OSPI is in support of this bill with concerns. OSPI currently reports SGPs and will continue to do so. The assessment scores can be reported as norm-referenced results at the school level but OSPI will not be able to report norm-referenced scores at the student level. The concern is that the term norm-reference is not limited to school level. Additionally, OSPI is working to increase the data detail provided on the school report card on the agency's website.