Data SGP leverages longitudinal student assessment data to produce statistical growth plots that measure students relative progress compared to academic peers. These growth models are an integral part of the Michigan state educator evaluation system and are used in conjunction with standardized test scores to assess teacher/student performance against state achievement goals/targets.
These models are complex and require careful preparation of student assessment data for use in the calculations. This is especially true if the model is to be used in an educator evaluation context where it is important to be able to identify individual teachers whose students have not met specific proficiency targets. The technical resources available on the Student Growth District and School Resources webpage are an excellent resource for learning about these models and how they can be applied to your district/school evaluation processes.
While SGP analyses can be produced from a variety of formats (WIDE, LONG and XML), the lower level functions that do the actual calculations and studentGrowthPercentiles and studentGrowthProjections are designed to work with the WIDE formatted student assessment data sets provided in sgpData. However, the higher level wrapper functions sgpData and studentGrowthPlots are designed to work with both WIDE and LONG formatted data sets. If you plan to run operational analyses on a regular basis we recommend working with the LONG formatted data set as it offers more advantages in terms of preparation, storage and retrieval than the WIDE data set.
In addition to the sgpData data set, the sgpData_INSTRUCTOR_NUMBER is an invaluable lookup table that allows districts to assign students with multiple instructors for one content area in a given year to a single instructor for that content area based on unique identifiers associated with each student’s sgpData record. This is an essential feature because it enables the creation of growth plots that accurately reflect student progress.
Student growth percentiles are a number between 1 and 99 that describe how much a student has grown compared to their academic peers. For example, a student with an SGP of 85 means that the student has shown more relative growth than about 75% of their academic peers.
SGPs are a powerful tool for educators to use when making instructional decisions in their classrooms. They can help teachers to identify areas for improvement within their classrooms so that they can meet the needs of all students. However, SGPs should not be used as the sole factor when making decisions about instructional support or challenge for students. Teachers should also continue to evaluate students based on multiple metrics, including standardized test results and class-wide academic performance indicators.