Data: Reading Placement Analysis

Waukegan Public Schools 2012-2014
Mar 15, 2013
2 min read

Upon starting the school year, feedback from the Communications teachers identified some misplaced students throughout the core and intervention classes. Investigating further, the scope of misplaced students was larger than expected and the gravity of the situation required a review of all middle school students across the five middle schools.

The problem laid in not knowing which students truly belonged in each course and placing the students in the correct place required assessing their historical data (three benchmark data points from three different assessments) to make the correct decision. The data compilation and review needed to be assessed for every student in middle school to ensure their correct placement.

After months of data compilation, analysis and meetings with stakeholders, close to 3000 students were correctly placed into their Communications courses. The images below portray the process that my team and I went through to rectify the situation.

I developed a spreadsheet that collected all of the students' data and met with the administration at each school to determine the final decision for the students with questionable reading data. One teacher's class roster with data to determine placement:

The students who had low reading scores were assessed again and teacher feedback was integral in determining the final placement:

The amount of hours spent compiling data and analyzing growth was immense at the beginning of the school year. This process needed to be done again at the end of the year to determine the correct placement for the following year:

Below are some examples of reports that we retrieved our data from: Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) and the Scholastic Phonics Inventory:

Probably the most critical and sustainable element that came out of the challenging situation was the creation of procedures and guides on how to place the students in the future. Below is a placement guide, as well as, an override form in the event that a teacher fears a student has been misplaced or has grown significantly to move from one course to another. The RtI team created the procedures and then provided professional development to every school and teacher so that the process was continued independently.