Journal article
How to promote equity in advanced coursework participation: Three strategies for closing the gaps—and retaining students
March 2020
District Administration
By: Teresa Ketelsen, Beth Tarasawa
Abstract
How can leaders in education better understand and address opportunity gaps in course-taking? District administrators in Gresham-Barlow School District (GBSD), just outside Portland, Oregon, took a data-driven approach.
This article was published outside of NWEA. The full text can be found at the link above.
Topics: Empowering educators, Equity, High school
Related Topics
This white paper examines the landscape of middle school science course offerings, enrollment patterns, and assessment outcomes. The analysis of data from 2,200 schools finds that multi-disciplinary course models now dominate versus single-course offerings, though access to course types varies by race and ethnicity. In addition, students in different course models performed similarly on assessments.
By: Naomi Duran, PhD, Susan Kowalski
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: Equity, Math & STEM
A Practical Guide for Considering and Interpreting Test Score Differences Among Student Subgroups
This guide offers recommendations for how to understand what differences may exist when looking at data for student groups, and gives leaders some structure for how they might consider and interpret those differences.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: Empowering educators, Equity, Growth, Guidance
Spanish MAP Reading Fluency Technical Report
This technical report outlines the design, scoring, reliability, and validity of the Spanish MAP Reading Fluency assessment, demonstrating how it measures foundational skills and oral reading fluency to support early literacy development.
By: Rachel Hawthorne, Sara Velazquez, Fang Peng, Carmen Hall, John Newburn
Products: MAP Reading Fluency
Topics: Early learning, Equity, Measurement & scaling, Test design
MAP Growth Spanish Technical Report- Addendum
This technical addendum report is written to help measurement professionals and administrators evaluate the quality of the MAP Growth’s Spanish assessments.
By: Patrick Meyer, Janice Johnson, Xueming (Sylvia) Li, Ann Hu, Carmen Hall
Products: MAP Growth, MAP Spanish
Topics: Equity, Item response theory, Measurement & scaling, Test design
MAP Growth Goal Explorer User’s Guide and FAQ
This user’s guide for the MAP Growth Goal Explorer describes how to use this interactive tool, the benchmarks it uses to provide context on student growth goals, a framework for goal setting, instructions for how to download information from the tool, and answers to frequently asked questions.
Topics: Innovations in reporting & assessment, Empowering educators
Unequal Access to 8th-Grade Algebra: How School Offerings and Placement Practices Limit Opportunity
This NWEA research brief examines how access to early Algebra – a key gateway to advanced high school math, STEM majors, and higher lifetime earnings – remains highly inequitable across the United States. Using NWEA data from 162,000 eighth-grade students across 22 states, the study looks at both whether schools offer Algebra by 8th grade and how students are placed when it is offered. The findings point to significant gaps tied to school poverty levels, geography, and race/ethnicity.
By: Daniel Long, Megan Kuhfeld, Scott J. Peters
Topics: College & career readiness, Equity, Math & STEM
This is the technical appendix to the “Unequal Access to 8th-Grade Algebra: How School Offerings and Placement Practices Limit Opportunity” research brief, which examines how access to early Algebra remains highly inequitable across the United States.
By: Daniel Long, Megan Kuhfeld, Scott J. Peters
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: College & career readiness, Equity, Math & STEM