A Multilevel Study of the Impact of District-Level Characteristics on Texas Student Growth Trajectories on a High-Stakes Math Exam

Abstract

Mathematics is a core content area in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and is vital to student learning in the other STEM subjects. The purpose of this study was to investigate the math performance of fifth- and eighth-grade students in 1170 Texas school districts. We conducted growth hierarchical linear modeling in SAS 9.4 in order to explore the effects of time, district-level characteristics, and their interaction on student performance as measured by the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) math test across three performance levels (i.e., approaching, meeting, and mastering grade level) over three academic years: 2016–2019. The overall findings indicated that, over time, Texas school districts improved in the percentage of students who approached, met, and mastered grade-level performance on the STAAR math test. The results also indicated that five district-level variables consistently and significantly impacted Grade 5 and 8 students’ math achievement at three performance levels. Significant positive factors included the percentage of English learner students and principal years of experience; significant negative factors were the percentage of economically challenged students, student mobility rate, and teacher turnover rate.

Understanding the Complexities of Student Learning Progress in Texas: A Study of COVID-19 and Rural vs. Non-Rural Districts

“…Disparities in socioeconomic status (SES) can considerably affect the achievement gap between students in rural and non-rural settings [44]. Moreover, English language proficiency is imperative to students' academic success, specifically in reading, math, and science [18,45,46]. Recent research has also established a potent correlation between the teacher turnover rate and student mobility rate, along with their academic performance in diverse subjects [18,45,46].…”

“…Specifically for schools in rural areas, students' learning loss and the possible factors that impacted their achievement might need a close look. For example, compared to non-rural school districts, rural school districts normally had significantly more students identified as economically disadvantaged [17], limited instructional expenditure [18], a higher student mobility rate [17,19], and a high teacher turnover rate [20,21]. Given the geographic isolation of rural schools, limited resources, and lack of support, rural schools face significant challenges in providing effective and quality professional development to teachers [22,23].…”

“…Given the geographic isolation of rural schools, limited resources, and lack of support, rural schools face significant challenges in providing effective and quality professional development to teachers [22,23]. With the largest number of students enrolled in rural public schools [17], Texas not only faces challenges similar to other rural areas, such as low expenditure and professional isolation, but it also possesses some unique rural education characteristics [18]. For example, nationally, 3.5% of rural students were identified as English learners, while this figure in Texas is 8.2% [24].…”

“…For example, nationally, 3.5% of rural students were identified as English learners, while this figure in Texas is 8.2% [24]. It was found in previous studies that there exists an achievement gap among rural and non-rural school students in reading [17,18,25] and science [26]. While school location is often used as an indicator in educational research and policy making, what impacts students' academic achievement is not the categorization of rural or non-rural, but the local demographic characteristics associated with the school districts [18].…”

Investigating the Impact of A Literacy-infused Science Intervention on Economically Challenged Students’ Science Achievement: A Case Study from A Rural District in Texas

“…Rural school districts, including the current study context, are reported to have limited state and federal funding to address various school needs (Showalter et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2019;Williams, 2010). These districts normally have significantly low instructional expenditure (Tang et al, 2021b), and high percent of EC students (Strange et al, 2012), student mobility (Paik & Phillips, 2002;Reynolds et al, 2009), and teacher turnover (Lowe, 2006). Students in rural districts demonstrate relatively low academic achievement in reading (Cantrell et al, 2018;Tang et al, 2021a) and science (Holland et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2019) as compared to students in districts serving middleand upper-class population.…”