The TUDA assessments were designed to explore the feasibility of using NAEP to measure performance of public school students at the district level on a common scale. Because the assessments are the same for the nation, the states, and the urban districts, NAEP serves as a common yardstick for comparison.
Participation in TUDA is voluntary. In 2005, 10 districts from around the country participated.
Trial Urban District Assessment Map—Science 2005
The 10 districts participating in the Science TUDA range in size from New York, with almost a million students, to Atlanta, with about 50,000. In between are Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Charlotte (North Carolina), Austin, Cleveland, and Boston.
So how did these districts do?
At grade four, all of these districts, except for Austin, scored below the nation in science, a subject fundamentally important to the future competitiveness of the United States.
Here are the national and large central city numbers.
Seven districts scored as well as, or better than, students in large central cities. These were Austin, Charlotte, Houston, San Diego, New York City, Atlanta, and Boston.
Three districts—Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles—scored below large central cities.
Achievement Level Results
We also compare the percentage of fourth-graders who were at or above Basic and at or above Proficient with the large central city percentages.
Two districts—Austin and Charlotte—had percentages at or above Basic that were higher than the large central city percentage.
In three districts—San Diego, Houston, and New York City—the difference was not significant.
In the remaining five districts, the percentage at or above Basic was lower than the large central city percentage. These were Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
The Governing Board’s goal is that all students should perform at or above Proficient.
The percent of students at this level in the TUDA districts ranges from 9 percent to 25 percent, compared with 27 percent for the nation and 15 percent in large central cities nationwide.
The percentages at or above Proficient in two districts, Austin and Charlotte, were higher than in large central cities. Four districts had lower percentages than central cities nationally of students at or above this level—Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Los Angeles.
Cross-District Comparisons Of Average Scores For All Students
Comparing districts to one another, Austin and Charlotte were not significantly different from one another and scored higher than the remaining eight districts. Houston and San Diego were lower than Austin and Charlotte but not significantly different from one another. Chicago and Los Angeles scored lower than any district except Cleveland and each other.
Next, we’re going to look at how districts’ performance changes when we consider scores of low-income students only, because the districts serve so many of these students.
Cross-District Comparisons Of Average Scores For Low-Income Students
As we saw earlier, the percentage of low-income fourth-graders in 9 of the 10 TUDA districts exceeds the national percentage. The percentage of these students also varies substantially among districts, from 46 percent in Charlotte to 100 percent in Cleveland. In 9 of the 10 districts, over 60 percent of fourth-graders are low-income.
On average, these students tend to have lower scores than other students, and some of the variation in scores that we see when comparing districts to one another is due to the variation in percentages of low-income students.
When we compare scores for low-income students only, there are fewer significant differences in scores among districts than when we compare them across their entire student population. Austin scores higher than only four districts—San Diego, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Boston, Houston, and New York City score higher than three other districts—Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Charlotte scores ahead of Chicago and Los Angeles, and Cleveland and San Diego score ahead of Los Angeles.
Sample Question
We asked students several different kinds of questions on the assessment—both multiple-choice and “constructed-response,” which require a written answer. We also asked half the students to perform real experiments.
The example presented is a short constructed-response question—a physics question—that asked students which of two cups of water of equal size would experience the greater increase in the height of water when a ball was placed in the cup. One ball was larger than the other. Students were also required to explain their answers.
A student who chose the cup with the larger ball and gave a correct explanation—that the larger ball would take up more space—received a “Complete” score.
Nationally, 62 percent of students gave a “Complete” answer, while for large central city students, the percentage was 53 percent. For the 10 districts, the range was from 46 percent in Los Angeles to 62 percent in Charlotte.
We have many more sample questions and student responses available on the NAEP website. We make these questions and other analytic tools available to help teachers and school leaders understand where their students may need additional help to do better.
Eighth Grade
Now we’ll look at the performance of eighth-grade students.
Average Science Scores
As at grade 4, you will see that when comparing 8 th-grade students within the low-income group, several of these cities performed above their peers in the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, when all students are considered together, at grade 8 all 10 districts performed below the national average.
Austin, Charlotte, and San Diego had scores that were higher than the large central city average nationally. In three districts—Boston, Houston, and New York City—there was no significant difference, and the remaining four were lower than the central city average.
But again, when all students are considered together, at grade 8 all 10 districts performed below the national average.
Achievement Level Results
When we look at the percentages of eighth-graders who were at or above Basic in science for the districts, we see that three—Austin, Charlotte, and San Diego had percentages that were higher than the large central city percentage.
In two districts—Boston and New York City—the difference was not significantly different from the central city percentage.
In the remaining five districts—Houston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Atlanta-- the percentage at or above Basic was lower than the large central city percentage.
Between 5 percent in Cleveland and 7% in Atlanta up to 27 percent in Austin performed at or above Proficient, which, as I mentioned earlier, is a Governing Board goal. This compares to 27 percent of students nationally and 16 percent in the nation’s large central cities that met this standard.
Cross-District Comparisons Of Average Scores For All Students
Looking at cross-district comparisons for all students, we can see that average scores for Austin and Charlotte were higher than the large central city average and higher than the averages for the remaining eight districts. San Diego was higher than the large central city average, lower than Austin and Charlotte, and higher than the remaining seven districts. Boston, Houston, and New York City showed no significant difference when compared to large central cities, were lower than Austin, Charlotte, and San Diego, not significantly different from one another, and higher than the remaining four cities.
Chicago, Cleveland, and Los Angeles were lower than large central cities and the preceding six districts, not significantly different from one another, and higher than Atlanta. All 10 districts were below the national average.
Sample Question
One of the questions that eighth-graders answered on the assessment is a multiple-choice question from the field of Life Science, in which students were shown a drawing of a cell and asked them to identify the part of a cell that contains most of its genetic material. The answer is the nucleus.
Nationally, 52 percent of students answered this question correctly, while for large central cities it was 44 percent. For the 10 districts, the percentage ranged from 36 percent in Cleveland to 54 percent in Austin.
For More Information
Complete information on the 2005 TUDA Science Assessment is available on the Internet at http://nationsreportcard.gov, including the full text of the Report Card, background on NAEP, sample questions, and an online data tool that allows you to do extensive additional comparisons on your own.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/education/16reportcard.html?ref=education
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