Data SGP is the aggregated student performance data that teachers and administrators use to understand students’ progress over time. It includes measures like test scores, growth percentiles and a range of teacher-level and classroom-level metrics. This information can be used to inform instructional practices, evaluate educators/districts and support broader research initiatives.

Data sgp allows schools to communicate achievement trends in terms of official state standards and goals that are familiar to stakeholders. In addition, it enables districts to explain the complexity of their proficiency targets by illustrating multi-year growth trajectories.

A student’s SGP describes how her growth compares to the growth of other students with similar prior test scores (their academic peers). This information is provided in percentile terms that are familiar to teachers and parents. Because SGPs are a measure of a student’s overall academic achievement, they can be used by teachers and school leaders to identify students who may need additional support.

SGPs are calculated for each assessment that a student takes. Each SGP is calculated using the most recent assessment and one or more prior assessments that have been taken within a specific testing window. The term “testing windows” refers to the times of year that each assessment is administered. Typically, there are three distinct testing windows each year: Fall, Winter, and Spring. Unlike the SGPs that are reported in the Star Report, these window-specific SGPs do not have to correspond to a district’s school year.

In the example above, Simon’s sixth grade SGP is based on his score on this year’s test and the scores of other students who took that same test during a previous testing window. Up to five prior test scores are considered when establishing a student’s comparison group. This means that in addition to comparing Simon’s growth to other sixth graders, the SGP also compares him to other sixth graders who had similar test scores in fifth and fourth grades.

While SGPs can be used to identify students who are struggling or excelling, they are most effective in helping teachers understand their students’ progress over time. This can help teachers develop more accurate goals for their students and to identify strategies for maximizing each student’s potential.

Teachers can utilize SGPs to improve classroom instruction and engage in more targeted professional learning. Districts can use SGPs to communicate with community members and the public that students are making good progress toward their achievement targets despite a variety of challenges.

In order to fully utilize SGPs, districts need to ensure that the data they use to calculate SGPs is standardized and usable. Fortunately, there are several tools available for analyzing educational assessment data including the R statistical software environment. This analysis tool is available for free with many online resources available to assist new users. Among these tools is the SGP data analysis vignette that provides an exemplar of a data set that can be used with the sgpData function to calculate SGPs.