On Monday, July 30, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) released the 2011-2012 test score results. The following brief will highlight the results of these tests, compare achievement scores over time, and provide a glimpse of regional achievement results for the following exams:  Benchmark Exam (Grades 3-8)  End-of-Course Exam (Algebra I, Geometry, Biology, and Grade 11 Literacy).  Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Grades 1-9

Greenwood, Reed

Ritter, Gary W.

English

ScholarWorks@UARK

University of Arkansas, FayettevilleScholarWorks@UARKPolicy Briefs Office for Education Policy8-2-20122011-2012 Arkansas Test ResultsReed GreenwoodUniversity of Arkansas, FayettevilleGary W. RitterUniversity of Arkansas, FayettevilleFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/oepbriefPart of the Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Education LawCommons, and the Education Policy CommonsThis Brief is brought to you for free and open access by the Office for Education Policy at ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion inPolicy Briefs by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact scholar@uark.edu, ccmiddle@uark.edu.Recommended CitationGreenwood, Reed and Ritter, Gary W., "2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results" (2012). Policy Briefs. 51.http://scholarworks.uark.edu/oepbrief/51 2011-12 Arkansas Test Results This Brief Introduction P.1 Statewide Benchmark performance  P.1 Regional Benchmark Performance P.2 Statewide/Regional EOC Performance P.3  Statewide/Regional ITBS Performance P.4  Source links and Summary P.5 Office for Education Policy  Vol. 9 Issue 4 AUGUST  2012  Summary Points  Arkansas students continue to show growth on the Arkansas Benchmark exams with 81% scoring at the proficient or ad-vanced level in literacy and 78% in math. These scores represent a six percentage point and one percentage point gain, respec-tively, over the previous year.   Lower grades (3-5), on average, have more students scoring at the proficient or advanced level as compared to the upper grades (6-8), particularly on the math and science Benchmark exams.   Student performance on the norm-referenced Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) was charac-terized by across-the-board gains in national percentile rank compared with the prior year.   Regionally, Northwest Arkansas (Region 1) continues to outscore the remainder of the state on ALL statewide exams.   Full databases with state- and district-level scores are availa-ble on the OEP Arkansas Data webpage: http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resources.html   On Monday, July 30, the Arkansas De-partment of Education (ADE) released the 2011-2012 test score results. The fol-lowing brief will highlight the results of these tests, compare achievement scores over time, and provide a glimpse of re-gional achievement results for the follow-ing exams:   Benchmark Exam (Grades 3-8)   End-of-Course Exam (Algebra I,  Geometry, Biology, and Grade 11  Literacy).  Iowa Test of Basic Skills  (Grades 1-9)  Academic Snapshots Benchmark Performance: Statewide The Arkansas Benchmark exam is adminis-tered to students in grades 3-8 each spring in Arkansas. This criterion-referenced test (CRT) measures knowledge proficiency ac-cording to the Arkansas curricular standards.   Students in Arkansas continue to show improved performance on the Benchmark exam compared with previous administra-tions. The results of this administration show that 81% of Arkansas 3rd-8th grade students scored at the proficient or ad-vanced level (P/A) in literacy, and 78% scored similarly in math (see Figure 1 be-low). There was a surprisingly large jump in literacy performance on this administra-tion (a six-percentage point gain from 75% in 2010-11) as compared to the one-percentage point increase in math from last year’s Benchmark exam administra-tion. Although we see similarly large gains over time in literacy and math, these gains have occurred over several years. As performance nears the ceiling of possible scoring (100%), we would expect large gains to be more difficult to achieve. Per-haps a further inquiry into the 2011-12 literacy performance is warranted.  Figure 1: Percent Proficient And Advanced on the Benchmark Exam, Selected Years 78%77%68%55%81%75%64%59%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%2011-122010-112007-082005-06Literacy Mathwww.uark.edu/ua/oep/ Benchmark Performance: Regional In this section, we examine student perfor-mance on the Benchmark exam by region. The ADE divides schools and districts into the following five regional categories:  Region 1: Northwest (NW)  Region 2: Northeast (NE)  Region 3: Central (CN)  Region 4: Southwest (SW)  Region 5: Southeast (SE) Demographic characteristics about each region can be found in Table 1. The highest concentration of students is found in the Northwest and Central regions. Further, we see the lowest levels of poverty among these two regions, as measured by the per-centage of students receiving a free or re-duce-priced lunch (FRL). Conversely, we see the smallest enrollment, and highest concentration of minority and FRL stu-dents in the Southwest and Southeast (Arkansas delta) regions. Given the region’s relative affluence, it is not surprising that Northwest Arkansas (Region 1) has continuously has the highest percent of students scoring proficient and advanced in literacy and math across the state. However, it is important to note that the delta Southeast has seen the largest gains in students scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on both the math and literacy Benchmark exams (gains of at least 27 percentage points in both subjects) over a six year period from 2005-06 through the current year. In fact, all regions, and the state as a whole have made substantial increases in the per-cent of students scoring proficient or ad-vanced on the Benchmark exams in math and literacy (at least 20 percentage points in each subject) over the same time period. This indicates our students are consistently improving in knowledge and skills reflect-ed in the Arkansas state curricular stand-ards.  Table 1: Student Demographic Characteristics, 2011-2012 by Region   Enrollment % Minority % FRL  Poverty  Index Arkansas Overall 468,000 35% 60% 110% Region 1: Northwest 161,946 29% 57% 103% Region 2: Northeast 95,423 28% 64% 117% Region 3: Central 137,305 43% 56% 102% Region 4: Southwest 46,857 43% 67% 124% Region 5: Southeast 26,469 52% 72% 136% 70%73%76%77%82%78%42%50%52%54%62%55%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Region 5 (SE)Region 4 (SW)Region 3 (CN)Region 2 (NE)Region 1 (NW)Arkansas2005-06 2011-12Figure 2: Literacy Benchmark Exam, Percent Proficient and Ad-vanced, by Region 2005-06 & 2011-12 Figure 3: Math Benchmark Exam, Percent Proficient and Advanced, by Region 2005-06 & 2011-12 75%79%80%81%85%81%48%53%56%59%65%59%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Region 5 (SE)Region 4 (SW)Region 3 (CN)Region 2 (NE)Region 1 (NW)Arkansas2005-06 2011-12www.uark.edu/ua/oep/ End of Course Exam  Performance: Statewide Students in Arkansas taking cours-es in Algebra, Geometry, Biology are also required to take an End-of-Course (EOC) exams at the close of the semester/year they take the course. In addition, all students are required to take a Literacy EOC exam in 11th grade. The fol-lowing section highlights Arkan-sas performance on the EOC ex-ams for 2011-12. The greatest gains in EOC Exam performance were seen on the Al-gebra EOC (up seven percentage points to 85% percent scoring P/A from the prior year) and, like the literacy scores on the Benchmark exam, student performance on the Grade 11 Literacy EOC grew by 8 percentage points to 68% P/A over the prior year (see Figure 4).  On the Geometry EOC, student performance continued a positive trend, but scores only grew by 2 percentage points from last year to 75% P/A.  42%68%75%85%41%60%73%78%29%51%60%66%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%BiologyGrade 11 LiteracyGeometryAlgebra2007-08 2010-11 2011-12 Figure 4: EOC Exams, Percent Scoring Proficient or Advanced, Selected Years   Algebra Geometry Grade 11 Literacy Biology Arkansas 81% 75% 68% 42% Region 1 (NW) 85% 81% 75% 51% Region 2 (NE) 78% 76% 65% 39% Region 3 (CN) 77% 72% 69% 40% Region 4 (SW) 73% 67% 61% 34% Region 5 (SE) 73% 69% 54% 30%  Table 3: EOC Exams, Percent Scoring Proficient or Advanced, by Region, 2011-12 Benchmark Grade-Level Summaries: Grade level summaries of Benchmark exam performance are presented in Table 2 be-low. On average, we see lower percentages of students scoring at the proficient or advanced level in the upper grades (6-8). In addition, science scores are also included here. These results indicate that drops in scores were more pronounced for older stu-dents in science and math Benchmark subtests. Table 2: Summary of Grade-level Performance on the Arkansas Benchmark Exam, 2011-12   Math Total Literacy Total Science Total Grade # Tested % Prof./Adv. # Tested % Prof./Adv. # Tested % Prof./Adv. 3 35,689 86% 35,689 81%     4 35,913 82% 35,913 85%     5 36,035 74% 36,035 85% 36,035 60% 6 35,809 75% 35,809 75%     7 35,871 76% 35,871 79% 35,871 39% 8 35,304 67% 35,304 80%     Performance on the Biology EOC exam continues to lag behind the other EOC exams as has been the case in previous years. We also see the smallest gain (1 percent) of students scoring proficient or advanced over the previous test administration. (See Figure 4). End of Course Exam Performance: Regional Regional trends on the EOC Exams mirror those observed on the Benchmark exams with the highest percentage of students scoring at the proficient or advanced level concentrated in Northwest Arkansas (Region 1). We also see in ALL regions that the Algebra EOC exam had more students scoring at the P/A level followed by Geometry, then by Grade 11 Literacy and finally by Biology (see Table 3 above). This may be because the Biology EOC exam is the “newest” of the EOC exams, and teachers and students are still acclimating to the test. www.uark.edu/ua/oep/ Iowa Test of Basic Skills Performance: Statewide The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is a nationally norm-referenced test (NRT) that is administered in tandem with the Arkan-sas Benchmark test as part of the “Augmented Benchmark exam.” in 2011-12, the ITBS was administered to students in grades 1-9 (though only scores from grades 3-8 are used in the Augmented Benchmark). This is the second year Arkansas has used the ITBS as an NRT in recent years. Since the ITBS as a nationally normed test, results are reported in National Percentile Ranks (NPR) in each subject area. This measures Arkansas’ student performance against that of other states that also administer the ITBS. As shown in Figure 5, 2011-12 scores in all areas did not change or increased slightly from 2010-11. Overall, Arkansas students had a higher science percentile rank in comparison to the other subjects. This is interesting considering the relatively poor performance in grades 5 and 7 on the Benchmark science exam, and the relatively poor performance on the Biology EOC Exam.   Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS)   The ITBS has been tak-en intermittently with the Stanford Achieve-ment Test, Tenth Edition (SAT-10).    Students in Arkansas first took the ITBS dur-ing the 2004-05 academ-ic year and then again during 2010-11 and 2011-12.  During the years the ITBS was not adminis-tered, Arkansas used the SAT-10 as the NRT por-tion of the Augmented Benchmark Exam.   Because we only have one year of pre-year ITBS results for compar-ison, these gains should be interpreted with cau-tion, as lack of familiari-ty with the test may have artificially de-creased the previous year’s performance.  Table 3: National Percentile Rank on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 2011-12, by Region Figure 5: National Percentile Rank on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 2010-11 through 2011-121 Iowa Test of Basic Skills Performance: Regional Not surprisingly, the trend of performance on statewide exams being the highest in Northwest Arkansas (Region 1) does not change with ITBS performance. In fact, Northwest Arkansas is the only region in the state with higher percentile ranks than the overall state. Still, given the low statewide performance on the Benchmark science exam (in grades 5 and 7) and the Biology EOC exam, it is surprising to see Arkansas students scoring so well on the science portion of the ITBS. Further, because we only have one year of “pre-data,” these NPR gains could be artificially in-flated due to students’ increased familiarity with the exam. For example, prior to last year, Ar-kansas administered the Stanford Achievement Test, Tenth Edition (SAT-10), thus students would have not been familiar with the ITBS when they took it for the first time in 2010-11.   Overall District NPR Mathematics NPR Reading NPR Language NPR Science NPR Arkansas 54 57 52 52 61 Region 1 (NW) 58 61 56 55 68 Region 2 (NE) 53 55 51 51 60 Region 3 (CN) 53 55 51 50 59 Region 4 (SW) 50 53 48 49 56 Region 5 (SE) 46 49 43 45 49 615252575461505256510 10 20 30 40 50 60 70Science NPRLanguage NPRReading NPRMath NPROverall District NPR2010-11 2011-121 the ADE-reported ITBS scores from 2010-11 included grades K-9; however, in 2011-12, only data for grades 1-9 were reported. Thus in the comparisons between the two years in Figure 5 only include grades 1-9. For More Infor-mation about this Policy Brief and  other education  issues in Arkansas contact us:  O ff i ce  fo r  E du c a t i on  P o l i c y  2 11  G r ad  E d  B u i l d in g  F ay e t t e v i l l e ,  A R 7 2 70 1  P h on e :  ( 4 7 9)  5 75 - 37 7 3  F ax:  ( 47 9)  5 7 5 -3 19 6  oe p @ u ar k .e d u   Visit Our Blog:  w w w . o f f i c e f o r e d p o l i c y . c o m  OEP DIRECTOR: Gary W. Ritter, PhD RESEARCH  ASSOCIATES: Caleb P. Rose Michael L. Crouch GRADUATE  FELLOWS: James L. Woodworth Jennifer W. Ash Sarah M. Burks  A Note on Sources: All of the Tables and Figures presented above were created using original source data provided by the Arkansas Department of Education Testing Website found here:  http://www.arkansased.org/testing/test_scores.html At the OEP, we have taken these raw grade-by-grade data and aggregated them into school– and district-level databases that allow the user to look at performance of the entire school, the entire district, by educational region, and statewide. Click on the following links to access these data by exam and aggregation level: School- and District-level Benchmark Exam Databases:  http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resources.html  School– and District-level EOC Exam Databases:  http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resourcesEOC.html  School-and District-level Norm-referenced (ITBS & SAT-10) Databases:  http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resourcesNRT.html  Databases from the most recent administration (2011-12) were posted in conjunction with this policy brief; however, the websites above included databases spanning back to the 2004-05 aca-demic year. We hope you will take advantage of these resources, and most importantly, contact our office at oep@uark.edu or (479) 575-3773 if you have any questions about these data. Summary Overall, Arkansas’ students continue to make progress on all statewide exams. There are many questions that can be asked in the coming months surrounding these scores. For example:  What led to the increase in literacy Benchmark performance?  Why did students score so well on the ITBS science subtest, but poorly on the Benchmark science and EOC Biology exams?  Why do we not see similar performance among middle grades on the math and science Benchmark exam as we do in early grades? It is also important to look at scores in the context of the regions and districts, thus we provided this information in this policy brief.   As we look to the future with the Common Core State Standards, it is important to note that the new system of testing (PARCC) will not be fully implemented until 2014-2015, so the Bench-mark and EOC will remain in place until then. See our policy brief on the new testing system here: http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/policy_briefs/2011/8_3_PARCC_Assessments.pdf  The Common Core State Standards were implemented in K-2 during the 2011-2012 year; and the CCSS will be implemented in grades 3-8 this coming year.  While there can be no conclusions about how the CCSS effect student achievement, we look to the future when there will be results.   We hope you find the information presented in the brief useful. However, we understand that you may wish to compare a school or district near you. To do so, please visit our OEP Arkansas Data page at http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resources.html or see our “Note on Sources” at the end of this document for more information on all of our databases. www.uark.edu/ua/oep/ Note: The original release of this policy brief (published August 2, 2012) contained incorrect figures resulting from incorrect ITBS 2010-11 data. After correcting this data issue with the 2010-11 ITBS data, the OEP re-posted an updated and correct version of this policy brief on August 24, 2012. 

2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results

UARK (University of Arkansas )

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Policy Briefs Office for Education Policy 8-2-2012 2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results Reed Greenwood University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Gary W. Ritter University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/oepbrief  Part of the Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Education Law Commons, and the Education Policy Commons Citation Greenwood, R., & Ritter, G. W. (2012). 2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results. Policy Briefs. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/oepbrief/51 This Brief is brought to you for free and open access by the Office for Education Policy at ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Policy Briefs by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact scholar@uark.edu.  2011-12 Arkansas Test Results This Brief Introduction P.1 Statewide Benchmark performance  P.1 Regional Benchmark Performance P.2 Statewide/Regional EOC Performance P.3  Statewide/Regional ITBS Performance P.4  Source links and Summary P.5 Office for Education Policy  Vol. 9 Issue 4 AUGUST  2012  Summary Points  Arkansas students continue to show growth on the Arkansas Benchmark exams with 81% scoring at the proficient or ad-vanced level in literacy and 78% in math. These scores represent a six percentage point and one percentage point gain, respec-tively, over the previous year.   Lower grades (3-5), on average, have more students scoring at the proficient or advanced level as compared to the upper grades (6-8), particularly on the math and science Benchmark exams.   Student performance on the norm-referenced Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) was charac-terized by across-the-board gains in national percentile rank compared with the prior year.   Regionally, Northwest Arkansas (Region 1) continues to outscore the remainder of the state on ALL statewide exams.   Full databases with state- and district-level scores are availa-ble on the OEP Arkansas Data webpage: http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resources.html   On Monday, July 30, the Arkansas De-partment of Education (ADE) released the 2011-2012 test score results. The fol-lowing brief will highlight the results of these tests, compare achievement scores over time, and provide a glimpse of re-gional achievement results for the follow-ing exams:   Benchmark Exam (Grades 3-8)   End-of-Course Exam (Algebra I,  Geometry, Biology, and Grade 11  Literacy).  Iowa Test of Basic Skills  (Grades 1-9)  Academic Snapshots Benchmark Performance: Statewide The Arkansas Benchmark exam is adminis-tered to students in grades 3-8 each spring in Arkansas. This criterion-referenced test (CRT) measures knowledge proficiency ac-cording to the Arkansas curricular standards.   Students in Arkansas continue to show improved performance on the Benchmark exam compared with previous administra-tions. The results of this administration show that 81% of Arkansas 3rd-8th grade students scored at the proficient or ad-vanced level (P/A) in literacy, and 78% scored similarly in math (see Figure 1 be-low). There was a surprisingly large jump in literacy performance on this administra-tion (a six-percentage point gain from 75% in 2010-11) as compared to the one-percentage point increase in math from last year’s Benchmark exam administra-tion. Although we see similarly large gains over time in literacy and math, these gains have occurred over several years. As performance nears the ceiling of possible scoring (100%), we would expect large gains to be more difficult to achieve. Per-haps a further inquiry into the 2011-12 literacy performance is warranted.  Figure 1: Percent Proficient And Advanced on the Benchmark Exam, Selected Years 78%77%68%55%81%75%64%59%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%2011-122010-112007-082005-06Literacy Mathwww.uark.edu/ua/oep/ Benchmark Performance: Regional In this section, we examine student perfor-mance on the Benchmark exam by region. The ADE divides schools and districts into the following five regional categories:  Region 1: Northwest (NW)  Region 2: Northeast (NE)  Region 3: Central (CN)  Region 4: Southwest (SW)  Region 5: Southeast (SE) Demographic characteristics about each region can be found in Table 1. The highest concentration of students is found in the Northwest and Central regions. Further, we see the lowest levels of poverty among these two regions, as measured by the per-centage of students receiving a free or re-duce-priced lunch (FRL). Conversely, we see the smallest enrollment, and highest concentration of minority and FRL stu-dents in the Southwest and Southeast (Arkansas delta) regions. Given the region’s relative affluence, it is not surprising that Northwest Arkansas (Region 1) has continuously has the highest percent of students scoring proficient and advanced in literacy and math across the state. However, it is important to note that the delta Southeast has seen the largest gains in students scoring at the proficient or advanced levels on both the math and literacy Benchmark exams (gains of at least 27 percentage points in both subjects) over a six year period from 2005-06 through the current year. In fact, all regions, and the state as a whole have made substantial increases in the per-cent of students scoring proficient or ad-vanced on the Benchmark exams in math and literacy (at least 20 percentage points in each subject) over the same time period. This indicates our students are consistently improving in knowledge and skills reflect-ed in the Arkansas state curricular stand-ards.  Table 1: Student Demographic Characteristics, 2011-2012 by Region   Enrollment % Minority % FRL  Poverty  Index Arkansas Overall 468,000 35% 60% 110% Region 1: Northwest 161,946 29% 57% 103% Region 2: Northeast 95,423 28% 64% 117% Region 3: Central 137,305 43% 56% 102% Region 4: Southwest 46,857 43% 67% 124% Region 5: Southeast 26,469 52% 72% 136% 70%73%76%77%82%78%42%50%52%54%62%55%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Region 5 (SE)Region 4 (SW)Region 3 (CN)Region 2 (NE)Region 1 (NW)Arkansas2005-06 2011-12Figure 2: Literacy Benchmark Exam, Percent Proficient and Ad-vanced, by Region 2005-06 & 2011-12 Figure 3: Math Benchmark Exam, Percent Proficient and Advanced, by Region 2005-06 & 2011-12 75%79%80%81%85%81%48%53%56%59%65%59%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Region 5 (SE)Region 4 (SW)Region 3 (CN)Region 2 (NE)Region 1 (NW)Arkansas2005-06 2011-12www.uark.edu/ua/oep/ End of Course Exam  Performance: Statewide Students in Arkansas taking cours-es in Algebra, Geometry, Biology are also required to take an End-of-Course (EOC) exams at the close of the semester/year they take the course. In addition, all students are required to take a Literacy EOC exam in 11th grade. The fol-lowing section highlights Arkan-sas performance on the EOC ex-ams for 2011-12. The greatest gains in EOC Exam performance were seen on the Al-gebra EOC (up seven percentage points to 85% percent scoring P/A from the prior year) and, like the literacy scores on the Benchmark exam, student performance on the Grade 11 Literacy EOC grew by 8 percentage points to 68% P/A over the prior year (see Figure 4).  On the Geometry EOC, student performance continued a positive trend, but scores only grew by 2 percentage points from last year to 75% P/A.  42%68%75%85%41%60%73%78%29%51%60%66%0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%BiologyGrade 11 LiteracyGeometryAlgebra2007-08 2010-11 2011-12 Figure 4: EOC Exams, Percent Scoring Proficient or Advanced, Selected Years   Algebra Geometry Grade 11 Literacy Biology Arkansas 81% 75% 68% 42% Region 1 (NW) 85% 81% 75% 51% Region 2 (NE) 78% 76% 65% 39% Region 3 (CN) 77% 72% 69% 40% Region 4 (SW) 73% 67% 61% 34% Region 5 (SE) 73% 69% 54% 30%  Table 3: EOC Exams, Percent Scoring Proficient or Advanced, by Region, 2011-12 Benchmark Grade-Level Summaries: Grade level summaries of Benchmark exam performance are presented in Table 2 be-low. On average, we see lower percentages of students scoring at the proficient or advanced level in the upper grades (6-8). In addition, science scores are also included here. These results indicate that drops in scores were more pronounced for older stu-dents in science and math Benchmark subtests. Table 2: Summary of Grade-level Performance on the Arkansas Benchmark Exam, 2011-12   Math Total Literacy Total Science Total Grade # Tested % Prof./Adv. # Tested % Prof./Adv. # Tested % Prof./Adv. 3 35,689 86% 35,689 81%     4 35,913 82% 35,913 85%     5 36,035 74% 36,035 85% 36,035 60% 6 35,809 75% 35,809 75%     7 35,871 76% 35,871 79% 35,871 39% 8 35,304 67% 35,304 80%     Performance on the Biology EOC exam continues to lag behind the other EOC exams as has been the case in previous years. We also see the smallest gain (1 percent) of students scoring proficient or advanced over the previous test administration. (See Figure 4). End of Course Exam Performance: Regional Regional trends on the EOC Exams mirror those observed on the Benchmark exams with the highest percentage of students scoring at the proficient or advanced level concentrated in Northwest Arkansas (Region 1). We also see in ALL regions that the Algebra EOC exam had more students scoring at the P/A level followed by Geometry, then by Grade 11 Literacy and finally by Biology (see Table 3 above). This may be because the Biology EOC exam is the “newest” of the EOC exams, and teachers and students are still acclimating to the test. www.uark.edu/ua/oep/ Iowa Test of Basic Skills Performance: Statewide The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is a nationally norm-referenced test (NRT) that is administered in tandem with the Arkan-sas Benchmark test as part of the “Augmented Benchmark exam.” in 2011-12, the ITBS was administered to students in grades 1-9 (though only scores from grades 3-8 are used in the Augmented Benchmark). This is the second year Arkansas has used the ITBS as an NRT in recent years. Since the ITBS as a nationally normed test, results are reported in National Percentile Ranks (NPR) in each subject area. This measures Arkansas’ student performance against that of other states that also administer the ITBS. As shown in Figure 5, 2011-12 scores in all areas did not change or increased slightly from 2010-11. Overall, Arkansas students had a higher science percentile rank in comparison to the other subjects. This is interesting considering the relatively poor performance in grades 5 and 7 on the Benchmark science exam, and the relatively poor performance on the Biology EOC Exam.   Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS)   The ITBS has been tak-en intermittently with the Stanford Achieve-ment Test, Tenth Edition (SAT-10).    Students in Arkansas first took the ITBS dur-ing the 2004-05 academ-ic year and then again during 2010-11 and 2011-12.  During the years the ITBS was not adminis-tered, Arkansas used the SAT-10 as the NRT por-tion of the Augmented Benchmark Exam.   Because we only have one year of pre-year ITBS results for compar-ison, these gains should be interpreted with cau-tion, as lack of familiari-ty with the test may have artificially de-creased the previous year’s performance.  Table 3: National Percentile Rank on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 2011-12, by Region Figure 5: National Percentile Rank on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, 2010-11 through 2011-121 Iowa Test of Basic Skills Performance: Regional Not surprisingly, the trend of performance on statewide exams being the highest in Northwest Arkansas (Region 1) does not change with ITBS performance. In fact, Northwest Arkansas is the only region in the state with higher percentile ranks than the overall state. Still, given the low statewide performance on the Benchmark science exam (in grades 5 and 7) and the Biology EOC exam, it is surprising to see Arkansas students scoring so well on the science portion of the ITBS. Further, because we only have one year of “pre-data,” these NPR gains could be artificially in-flated due to students’ increased familiarity with the exam. For example, prior to last year, Ar-kansas administered the Stanford Achievement Test, Tenth Edition (SAT-10), thus students would have not been familiar with the ITBS when they took it for the first time in 2010-11.   Overall District NPR Mathematics NPR Reading NPR Language NPR Science NPR Arkansas 54 57 52 52 61 Region 1 (NW) 58 61 56 55 68 Region 2 (NE) 53 55 51 51 60 Region 3 (CN) 53 55 51 50 59 Region 4 (SW) 50 53 48 49 56 Region 5 (SE) 46 49 43 45 49 615252575461505256510 10 20 30 40 50 60 70Science NPRLanguage NPRReading NPRMath NPROverall District NPR2010-11 2011-121 the ADE-reported ITBS scores from 2010-11 included grades K-9; however, in 2011-12, only data for grades 1-9 were reported. Thus in the comparisons between the two years in Figure 5 only include grades 1-9. For More Infor-mation about this Policy Brief and  other education  issues in Arkansas contact us:  O ff i ce  fo r  E du c a t i on  P o l i c y  2 11  G r ad  E d  B u i l d in g  F ay e t t e v i l l e ,  A R 7 2 70 1  P h on e :  ( 4 7 9)  5 75 - 37 7 3  F ax:  ( 47 9)  5 7 5 -3 19 6  oe p @ u ar k .e d u   Visit Our Blog:  w w w . o f f i c e f o r e d p o l i c y . c o m  OEP DIRECTOR: Gary W. Ritter, PhD RESEARCH  ASSOCIATES: Caleb P. Rose Michael L. Crouch GRADUATE  FELLOWS: James L. Woodworth Jennifer W. Ash Sarah M. Burks  A Note on Sources: All of the Tables and Figures presented above were created using original source data provided by the Arkansas Department of Education Testing Website found here:  http://www.arkansased.org/testing/test_scores.html At the OEP, we have taken these raw grade-by-grade data and aggregated them into school– and district-level databases that allow the user to look at performance of the entire school, the entire district, by educational region, and statewide. Click on the following links to access these data by exam and aggregation level: School- and District-level Benchmark Exam Databases:  http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resources.html  School– and District-level EOC Exam Databases:  http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resourcesEOC.html  School-and District-level Norm-referenced (ITBS & SAT-10) Databases:  http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resourcesNRT.html  Databases from the most recent administration (2011-12) were posted in conjunction with this policy brief; however, the websites above included databases spanning back to the 2004-05 aca-demic year. We hope you will take advantage of these resources, and most importantly, contact our office at oep@uark.edu or (479) 575-3773 if you have any questions about these data. Summary Overall, Arkansas’ students continue to make progress on all statewide exams. There are many questions that can be asked in the coming months surrounding these scores. For example:  What led to the increase in literacy Benchmark performance?  Why did students score so well on the ITBS science subtest, but poorly on the Benchmark science and EOC Biology exams?  Why do we not see similar performance among middle grades on the math and science Benchmark exam as we do in early grades? It is also important to look at scores in the context of the regions and districts, thus we provided this information in this policy brief.   As we look to the future with the Common Core State Standards, it is important to note that the new system of testing (PARCC) will not be fully implemented until 2014-2015, so the Bench-mark and EOC will remain in place until then. See our policy brief on the new testing system here: http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/policy_briefs/2011/8_3_PARCC_Assessments.pdf  The Common Core State Standards were implemented in K-2 during the 2011-2012 year; and the CCSS will be implemented in grades 3-8 this coming year.  While there can be no conclusions about how the CCSS effect student achievement, we look to the future when there will be results.   We hope you find the information presented in the brief useful. However, we understand that you may wish to compare a school or district near you. To do so, please visit our OEP Arkansas Data page at http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/resources.html or see our “Note on Sources” at the end of this document for more information on all of our databases. www.uark.edu/ua/oep/ Note: The original release of this policy brief (published August 2, 2012) contained incorrect figures resulting from incorrect ITBS 2010-11 data. After correcting this data issue with the 2010-11 ITBS data, the OEP re-posted an updated and correct version of this policy brief on August 24, 2012. 

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2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results

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