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My School Is Awesome (Academically). Or Is It?

CSEF · 2011 Mathematics & Software

Evelyn S. Zhang · Churchill (Winston) Middle School, Carmichael, Sacramento County

Overview

Objectives/Goals My project is to find out if my school is really good or not, academically. Methods/Materials I download school APIs and CST testing scores over the past 6 years from the website of California Department of Education. Then I performed statistical analysis such as histograms on those data using Excel, and compared the results for my school to other top schools in the state, in Sacramento County, and in my district, in terms of API or mean CST testing scores. I also made the same comparisons with two schools that were similar to my school for the last 5-6 years. Results From API comparison, it showed that my school is good, but not the best. From mean CST testing score comparison, it showed that our 6th grade is doing very good, close to the state tops. Our 7th and 8th grades are okay, but not as good as 6th grade. Histograms on the CST testing scores showed that our 6th grade is terrific, sometimes even better than the state tops. Looking at the scores for GATE students only, it showed that actually our 7th and 8th grade GATE students are doing better than our 6th grade GATE, when comparing to the state tops at the same grade. Our 6th grade non-GATE students are also good. Their scores stay close behind to our 6th grade GATE and the state tops. Since most of our 6th graders are in I.B., a special program at my school (not the case for 7th and 8th grades), this indicates that our special program is good. Conclusions/Discussion My conclusion is that my school is not the best in the state as I expected, but it is a good one, better than most schools. Students in our I.B. program are awesome, GATE and non-GATE. The analysis I performed here can also be used by schools and districts to find the problem area so they can focus on for future improvement.

Summary statement

Statistical analysis, such as histograms, were performed on API and CST testing results to find out if my school is awesome or not, academically.

Help received

Mother helped to build macros in Excel to extract data and post pictures. That speeded up the process.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2011 Mathematics & Software · Entry J1421

Resources

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