Data SGP and SGP Charts
Located on 160 acres of cattle pasture and wheat fields southeast of Lamont, the data sgp observatory is the center of a world-class research infrastructure. Its scientists work on everything from single observation analyses to multi-observation process studies to assimilation into earth system models. The observatory provides high quality, continuous observations of the atmosphere to scientists worldwide.
SGP places student growth in the context of students with similar prior test scores (their academic peers). This comparison allows us to fairly compare students who enter school at different levels and demonstrates that a student can improve even when they are not yet meeting a standard. It also gives low achieving students and schools something to strive for beyond proficiency.
SGP uses student data from the Star assessments and Betebenner’s catch-up and keep-up growth projections to provide student growth percentiles and trajectories. These are calculated by applying a quantile regression model to the students’ achievement histories in Star. The data used to generate SGPs is based on up to five years of test score history, including the 2014-15 Badger year.
The SGPs and trajectories that are generated by the data sgp software package can be displayed in a variety of ways. The most common display is a “sgp chart” that shows the student’s current SGP relative to the SGP of their academic peer group. This chart can be viewed for all students in a grade or by individual subgroups. It can be filtered by a range of criteria, such as race, gender or disability status.
These charts are a powerful tool for sharing student achievement information and highlighting the successes of individuals and groups. However, they are designed to be used in conjunction with other measures to provide a more complete picture of student performance. In Wisconsin, SGPs are a component of the College and Career Ready Performance Index and contribute to school and district accountability systems. They are also one of the multiple indicators used to measure teacher and leader effectiveness in the Teacher Keys and Leader Keys Effectiveness Systems.
Using the SGP software requires a computer running the open source program R. The software is free and available for Window, OSX and Linux and can be downloaded from CRAN. Although the software is relatively simple to use, we recommend that those running SGP analyses familiarize themselves with the program.
The SGP vignettes and help pages are meant to assist users in understanding how the program works and in running basic analyses. We encourage feedback from the community on these wiki pages. For a list of questions and answers regarding SGP, please see our FAQ page.
