Controversy has surrounded the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) scores that were released Dec. 8, 2016 for the Clarke County School District. Director of Assessment and Accountability for the CCSD Tim Jarboe is a critic of the CCRPI measurement. “(The CCRPI tries) to condense complex data into one number, and and I don’t think that’s a good way to do that. I think that makes complex discussion simple, and nothing in education is simple,” Jarboe said. Photo by Zoe Peterson.
By ELENA GILBERTSON-HALL – Staff Writer
The Georgia Department of Education recently released the College and Career Ready Performance Index scores for the 2015-16 school year. Some experts question the accuracy of the state’s measure of student performance.
The College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) scores represent a composite of elements, such as Georgia Milestones test scores and graduation rates to determine a public school’s grade. The CCRPI was first implemented in 2012, replacing the Adequate Yearly Progress measurement.
“Georgia wanted a more meaningful accountability system than Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which was the accountability system implemented under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). AYP had a narrow focus on test scores,” Director for Accountability for the Georgia Department of Education Allison Timberlake said. “The state wanted a system that included multiple measures to give a more complete picture of school performance. Georgia’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver gave us the opportunity to move away from AYP and implement CCRPI.”
According to Clarke Central High School Principal Marie Yuran, the CCRPI system is an improvement from the AYP measurement.
“It is more flexible than some other accountability measures that we’ve had because it does look at attendance and pathway completion, how many students are enrolled in (Advanced Placement) courses and different programs like that. Compared to the traditional No Child Left Behind AYP report card we had before, it’s more comprehensive in some ways,” Yuran said. “It’s a complicated piece to understand, and it’s not an easy snapshot for the community to understand, but I think (the state) made an effort to be more comprehensive and to look at data points other than how students perform on a single test on a single day.”
The CCRPI scores are made up of three main components: achievement (academic proficiency), progress (how students’ test scores differed from the previous year), and achievement gap (how the students in the lowest-achieving quartile perform). Schools are scored on a 100 point scale with the possibility of 10 additional bonus points for special achievements such as graduates earning credit in a physics course.
CCHS earned a score of 79.1 for the 2015-16 school year, which was an increase from the previous year’s score of 65.2. This increase was due to a general rise in test scores and graduation rate.
“Really across the board, from students who don’t do well on tests to students who typically do well on tests, all of those students grew (at CCHS). When all of those students grow, that affects your progress, your achievement and your achievement gap scores,” Director of Assessment and Accountability for the Clarke County School District Tim Jarboe said.
The CCSD’s overall score of 65.9 fell below the state’s average of 73.6 points, but 76 percent of CCSD schools performed at or above the 60-point failing grade. Four CCSD elementary schools (Barrow, Cleveland Road, Oglethorpe Avenue and Whit Davis), as well as CCHS, each scored five or more points above their 2014-15 school year scores.
This progress was not the case for many schools in the state, including many in the CCSD. The state’s score, as a whole, dropped over two points, and the CCSD’s score fell by .5 points. Although the cause is unknown, Phil Grant, Ph.D. candidate in education policy at the UGA, attributes the fallen scores to a change in CCRPI measurements.
“The CCRPI changed the weights of the components. Before 2015, academic achievement was 60 percent of the formula. Now, it is only 50 percent. Progress was only weighted at 25 percent and is now at 40 percent. Assessing the achievement gap is down from 15 percent to 10 percent,” Grant said. “As a result of the changing weights, it is likely that the changes in the CCRPI formula in 2015 and 2016 decreased scores independent of student performance. It is also possible that students in Georgia did more poorly this year than in years past, but changes from year to year should occur at the margins.”
There are many critics of the CCRPI including Jarboe, who believes the CCRPI is an oversimplification of many elements in a school.
“I think one of the biggest problems with CCRPI is it’s taking a lot of complex data points, that we should look at, that we should share with parents and teachers, but you’re trying to take those data points, and you’re trying to condense them mathematically to one number and rate a school,” Jarboe said. “I think that’s the fault of CCRPI. I think that makes complex discussion simple, and nothing in education is simple.”
According to Grant, another criticism of the CCRPI system is the advantages it gives more wealthy schools.
“I think it is skewed. I think schools with diverse populations have to work a lot harder and a lot more rigorously than schools that are not very diverse to score well on CCRPI,” Grant said.
Yuran also acknowledges the flaws of the CCRPI system, especially the heavy weighting of standardized test scores.
“I think, as with a lot of accountability measures, (the CCRPI) is a snapshot in some ways because our (end of course test) scores are in that, and that’s a one day performance on a group of students. Not even all the students in the building,” Yuran said.
According to the Executive Director of Elementary Teaching and Learning for the CCSD Angela Hardeman, although the district considers CCRPI scores important, its main focus is elsewhere.
“Because it is a state accountability measure, we take (the CCRPI) very seriously,” Hardeman said. “(But) our main focus goes go back to looking at each individual student’s growth, and the initiatives and strategies that will help with individual student mastery. We want all students to achieve and accomplish the expectations for the grade level and beyond. We want to do as much as possible to (help) each individual school.”
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