Gap Comparison

The academic performance of student subgroups are compared to contrasting groups to determine achievement gaps. To calculate the gap points are assigned to the performance levels for both the English Language Arts and Math State assessments to create an Assessment Performance Index (API) score. The 4 performance levels are divided in half to create 8 levels. Performance scores at level 1, the lowest, are assigned zero points, performance scores at level 8, the highest, are assigned 700 points. The points are totaled and then divided by the number of students to create the API score. Each student subgroup’s API score is then compared to the API score of state-level contrasting group to determine if a significant difference, or gap, in achievement exists. The gap comparison is applied to tested grades 3 – 8.