Equity and Student Growth in Texas presented by E3 Alliance in partnership with Texas Education Agency
On October 20, 2020, E3 Alliance and Texas Education Agency hosted a webinar. Watch here.
Click here for the Texas Equity Toolkit on the Texas Education Agency web site.
by Caitlin Hamrock, PhD, Director of Research at E3 Alliance, and
Rodrigo Lopez, Data Analyst at E3 Alliance
Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states are required to identify ways to measure equity by studying outcomes of different student populations. Using an extensive competitive process, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) requested input on ways to assess equity through growth measures and chose the E3 Alliance 3D Growth model as the most robust methodology. This report represents Texas’ first statewide student equity assessment using academic growth data. To read the complete report, download here.
Key takeaways
- The 3D Growth model allows us to incorporate multiple years of test scores at once, showing us a student’s trajectory rather than their performance at a single point in time. Additionally, we can draw comparisons between students with similar educational backgrounds, which helps to mitigate the statistical effect of socio-demographic characteristics and focus on student performance over time.
- Growth rates among low-income students were lower than the rates of their non-low-income peers. This pattern emerged across racial and ethnic groups, regions, and grades.
- Higher growth rates were seen among White and Asian students than their Black and Hispanic peers.
- The racial/ethnic composition of Texas teachers is quite different than the composition of students. Slightly more than half of the students in Texas are Hispanic (53%), while fewer than one-third of Texas teachers are Hispanic (29%). Over half of the teaching force in the state is White (57%), while less than one-third of the student population is White (27%).
- For math and reading, non-low-income students had lower median 3D Growth scores (1-2 points) when they shared their teacher’s ethnicity than when they did not.
- English Learners (ELs) who shared their teachers race/ethnicity had a median 3D Growth score that was significantly higher (9 points) that those who identified as a different race than their teacher.
