Math proficiency
The share of students in a school district scoring at or above their state's proficiency standard on the state mathematics assessment.
The share of assessed students in a school district who scored at or above their state's proficiency standard on the state mathematics assessment.
The Department of Education describes these data as "the percent of students proficient or above on the state assessment, with proficient or above defined as the number of students achieving at the proficient or advanced levels, as defined by the state". The denominator is "the total number of test takers who received a valid score", and the numerator "the number of students assigned to performance levels designated by the state to be at or above grade-level proficiency" (EDFacts assessment file documentation).
Students are assessed annually in grades three through eight and at least once in high school. The figure shown here covers all tested grades combined, for all students rather than any subgroup.
Metrics in this family#
Math proficiency
levelThe district's most recent reported percent proficient in mathematics, from school year 2020-21. No trend accompanies it: the collection loaded here holds a single school year, so there is no earlier point to compare against.
Considerations#
The proficiency standard is set by each state, and the tests differ. The Department states that "student achievement data are defined differently in each state, and, therefore, should not be compared across states" (ED Data Express). Comparisons within a state are the meaningful ones; comparisons across a state line are comparing two different tests.
School year 2020-21 was disrupted by the pandemic. The Department did not grant blanket assessment waivers that year, but it did encourage states to use flexibility, including "administering a shortened version of its statewide assessments", "offering remote administration", and "extending the testing window" (Dear Colleague letter, February 2021). Testing conditions and participation therefore varied more than usual between and within states that year.
Where a district's tested population is small, the Department publishes a range instead of an exact percentage, or suppresses the value entirely, to protect student privacy. Of the 17,019 districts in this release, about six in ten carry an exact percentage; most of the rest carry a range or a bound, and the figure shown for those districts is our own estimate inside the published range. Suppressed districts show nothing.
This is a district-level figure displayed on a census tract. It describes the district covering that tract, not the tract, and not any individual school within the district. It covers public schools only.
References#
- 1EDFacts assessment file documentationhttps://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/inits/ed/edfacts/data-files/assessments-sy12-13-public-file-documentation-v2-1.doc
- 2ED Data Expresshttps://eddataexpress.ed.gov/about
- 3Dear Colleague letter, February 2021https://www.ed.gov/files/2021/02/DCL-on-assessments-and-acct-final.pdf