At or Above State Criterion

Background

Campus Dashboard Metrics

Because of the importance of entrance exams to college acceptance, many school districts across the nation, including Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas and New York, have incorporated metrics on SAT® and ACT® performance into their internal performance management dashboards. In addition, during focus groups conducted with over 2,600 educators throughout Texas, the College Readiness: Entrance Exams metric, as presented in screenshots of the campus dashboard, was considered useful by 95% of those surveyed.

Primary Metric

  • SAT®/ACT® At or Above State Criterion: percentage of students at or above the state criterion on the SAT® or ACT®.

User Interface

Dashboard Example

Figure 1 shows the College Entrance Exam At or Above State Criterion metric as seen on the campus dashboard.

Figure 1 TSDS College Entrance Exams At or Above State Criterion Metric

Status Definition

The Status indicator is determined by campus-specific thresholds (campus goals) which are set at the district level. The TSDS default thresholds for both SAT and ACT are 90%.

 

Table 2 lists the status indicators and trend comparisons as seen on the campus dashboard.

Table 2 Metric Status Indicators for Campus College Entrance Exams At or Above State Criterion

Metric Status Indicator

Comparisons

Metric Name

Sub-metric Name

Metric Status  Indicator
(a)

Trend

Campus Goal  (Delta)

At or Above State Criterion

SAT

Red (Percentage) = If percentage of students at or above the state SAT criterion is less than campus goal

Green (Percentage) = If the percentage of students at or above the state criterion is greater than or equal to campus goal

Current year to prior year

The campus goal and the calculated percentage of students at or above the state criterion

ACT

Red (Percentage) = If percentage of students at or above the state SAT criterion is less than campus goal

Green (Percentage) = If the percentage of students at or above the state criterion is greater than or equal to campus goal

Current year to prior year

Campus goal and the calculated percentage of students at or above the state criterion

(a)  The Value column is the number of students who are at or above the state criterion for the exam out of the total number of students who took the exam.

Trends

The objective of the trend indicator is to increase the percent of students taking college entrance exams.

Table 3 Trends for TSDS College Entrance Exams At or Above State Criterion Metric

Trend Indicators for College Entrance Exams At or Above State Criterion

Up green

Percentage is higher compared to previous time frame; upward trend is favorable

Unchanged

+ 5 percentage points

Down red

Percentage is lower compared to previous year; flag indicates unfavorable trend

 

Delta Definition

The Delta column is the absolute value of the difference between the campus metric value (Status column) and the campus goal (Campus Goal column).

Table 4 Delta Indicators for TSDS SAT/ACT At or Above State Criterion Metric

Delta Indicators: Objective is to indicate SAT/ACT At or Above State Criterion

Metric Name

Sub-Metric Name

Campus Goal

Delta  

At or above state criterion

ACT

Set campus goal

Red (Percentage) = if the calculated percentage of students at or above the state criterion is less than the campus goal

Black (Percentage) = if the calculated percentage of students at or above the state criterion is greater than or equal to the campus goal

 

SAT

Set campus goal

Red (Percentage) = if the calculated percentage of students at or above the state criterion is less than the campus goal

Black (Percentage) = if the calculated percentage of students at or above the state criterion is greater than or equal to the campus goal

 

 

Periodicity

At a minimum, load the data for this metric at least annually, prior to the beginning of the school year. Best practice is to load the data monthly to capture the various test administrations. (SAT, and ACT exams are administered and received by districts several times throughout the year).

Table 5 Recommended Load Characteristics for College Entrance Exams SAT/ACT At or Above State Criterion Metric

Recommended Load Characteristics

Calendar

Throughout the school year

Frequency of data load

Monthly

Latency

Yearly

Interchange schema

Interchange-StudentAssessment.xsd

Tooltips

The standard tool tips for the metric definition, column headers, and help functions display for this metric.

  • Green metric status: OK
  • Red metric status: LOW
  • 'More' indicates the drill down view for this metric
  • is ‘No change from the prior period'
  • is ‘Getting worse from the prior period’
  • is 'Getting better from the prior period' 

Business Rules

The cohort for this metric is students currently enrolled in grades 9 through 12 at the campus at the time of the last data load. Excluded from the cohort are students who

  • were previously enrolled, but left or transferred to another campus
  • do not match student data due to SSID
  • do not have complete transcripts

Data Source

  • SAT, and ACT data are made available to the districts periodically as they are administered throughout the year.
  • Data for this metric is aggregated from the student data provided by the districts.
  • Exclude students from the cohort who are transfer students (late enrollees) without complete transcripts.
  • Exclude students from the cohort who do not match student data due to SSID.

SAT

This metric displays the percent of students who have taken the SAT with scores at/above state criterion.

ACT

This metric displays the percent of students who have taken the ACT with scores at/above state criterion.

Computed Values

Table 6 defines how values are calculated for each sub-metric. The result of the calculation displays in the Status column on the campus dashboard.

Table 6 Computed Values for College Entrance Exam Metric At or Above State Criterion Metric

Metric Values

SAT - % of students at or above state criteria

(Number of all current students who have met state criteria for SAT) * 100 / (Number of students who have taken the SAT)

ACT - % of students at/above state criterion

(Number of current students who have met state criteria for ACT) * 100 / (Number of students who have taken the ACT)

Data Anomalies

Anomalies

Best practice is to footnote these anomalies:

  • the date of the last test assessments in the database displays parenthetically in the title of the metric.
  • late enrollees may have taken college readiness tests at their previous school.
  • transfer students with an incomplete transcript.
  • students that cannot be matched due to SSID.

Implementation Considerations

Exam Apparent Non-Participation

The PSAT, SAT and ACT scores are administered throughout the year. Students’ non-participation can be detected only to the extent that the district has received and loaded timely test result data from The College Board (PSAT and SAT) and ACT. Information from one district’s coordinator indicate the SAT and ACT deliveries of results were “random” throughout the year. To make the Percentage Completing Exam indicator most effective, it is imperative that the scores be received and loaded in the timeliest manner. 

Exam Participation Expectation

Students may take the College Preparatory exams anywhere from 9th through 12th grade and may take them multiple times. The PSAT is typically taken in 9th or 10th grade, whereas the SAT and ACT are typically taken in the 11th and 12th grade. Proper application of the metric requires that the district or campus establish clear expectations for when students should take the PSAT, SAT, and ACT, and if a student has not taken either assessment, at what point an intervention is in order.

This functionality includes displaying this metric by grade and/or limiting the metric cohort to those students in the 10th and 11th grade for PSAT and 11th and 12th grade for SAT and ACT.

Incomplete Transcripts and Missing Exam Scores

Transfer students may have incomplete transcripts that do not show prior PSAT, SAT or ACT participation. Timely acquisition of a transfer student’s transcript is imperative to apply this and other metrics.

Campus Goals

Best practice is to set goals for each campus at the district level.  A secure mechanism is required to allow the district to set and maintain those goals.

Drill Downs

Drill Down Views

The dashboards include the option to drill down and see more detail that is associated with a metric. Table 7 lists the drill down views that are recommended for this metric.

Table 7 College Entrance Exam At or Above State Criterion Taken Metric Drill Down Views
HistoricalGraph of metric values across semesters and years.
Student ListList of students who do not meet the threshold for this metric for the specified period.

User Interface

Dashboard Examples

Figure 2 shows historical SAT/ACT at or above state criterion as seen in the campus dashboards.

Figure 2 TSDS Historical SAT/ACT At or Above State Criterion

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