The following table shows the effects of introduction, in 1998, of standards based curricula on ITBS scores. Very little change is seen in total math scores (made up of the categories problem solving, concepts, data interpretation and estimation), but a large drop is seen in computation scores in both 4th and 8th grade.
*NPR= National Percentile Ranking **IPR= Iowa Percentile Ranking Blank boxes indicate that no scores are available for those years.
Eleventh graders in the Cedar Rapids Community School District tend to score higher on standardized tests than 8th graders, who score higher than 4th graders. Based on this information, some administrators have commented that "the kids do better the longer they are in the system." This is actually impossible to determine based on this information, because these are different groups of children, who have learned under different circumstances. To truly know whether the kids improve over time, we have to track specific groups of children. This is important to help us predict what to expect down the road. The following table looks at the cohorts, or groups, of the same individuals over time. By looking at cohort data, we can see whether the kids improve or worsen their skills over time. So for example, in the first line, in 1989 the 4th graders as a group scored at the 57th percentile nationally on total math. Four years later, in 1993, when they were 8th graders, they scored at the 63rd percentile, a small improvement. It appears that for total math, the kids seem to score fairly consistently over time. However, when it comes to computation, the trend is clearly that the scores worsen with time.
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