By the E4 Team
In this interactive research brief, we share a high-level view of elementary school student outcomes from spring 2017 to 2022. Using a national sample of first- through eighth-grade students who participated in Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready Diagnostic, a digital assessment platform used by more than 11 million students across the United States, the E4 Center created four interactive charts to explore the following research questions:
- Math Trends: How have math outcomes in grades 1-8 changed over time? How do math outcomes vary across grade levels?
- Reading Trends: How have reading outcomes in grades 1-8 changed over time? How do reading outcomes vary across grade levels?
- Comparisons by School Characteristics: How do math and reading outcomes in grades 1-8 vary across school settings? Specifically, what is the relationship between school poverty level and racial/ethnic composition and student learning?
- Math & Reading Domains: How do math and reading outcomes in grades 1-8 vary by domains within each subject area?
In all charts, the values displayed represent the percentage of students performing on grade level on their end-of-year assessments; it’s a binary measure of performance (on grade level vs. not on grade level). Learn more about this measure and our approach to working with these data.
With the questions above in mind, we invite you to click a chart below to explore how student in grades 1-8 are faring in math and reading.
Technical notes
Students are classified as “on grade level” if they obtain a scale score on the spring i-Ready diagnostic assessment that places them at or above the grade in which they are enrolled. On-grade-level score ranges are determined by Curriculum Associates and serve as an indicator of whether students have a good understanding of material taught in their current grade level.
This analysis represents 8,407,830 unique student-year math assessment scores from 4,859 unique schools and 8,256,321 unique student-year reading assessment scores from 4,723 unique schools. We include assessment scores for K-8 students from 2016-17 through 2021-22 (with the exception of the 2019-20 school year due to pandemic disruptions).
We included assessment scores in our analysis when the following criteria were met:
- Valid score on spring assessment (student did not rush on assessment, assessment was completed at school)
- At least 10 valid spring assessment scores in each grade x school x year group
- NCES school demographic information (i.e., % free or reduced-price lunch recipients, % students of color) available in the 2018-19 school year
Math Trends
How have math outcomes in grades 1-8 changed over time?
- Start by selecting All Grades (1-8). Notice that there was a substantial drop in the percentage of students scoring on grade level from 2018-18 to 2021-21 (58% to 47%), followed by a slight increase in 2021-22 (47% to 48%).
How do math outcomes vary across grade levels?
- Next, dive into specific grade levels to see which showed more improvement than others following the beginning of the pandemic.
- For example, we see that the proportion of on-grade-level students in early elementary grades (1-2) increased by 2 percentage points (48% to 50%), while the proportion of on-grade-level students in middle grades (6-8) remained the same (38%).
Connections
- How do these trends compare to student learning patterns in your own classroom, school, or district? Where do you think trends are headed in the future?
- What about these trends is surprising to you? What aligns with your expectations? Share your thoughts with us.