Examining opportunity-to-learn and success in high school mathematics performance in California under NCLB

2013-07-26The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has put many schools under a lot of pressure to meet its high demands. In this quantitative study, the effects that the NCLB act has had on students’ opportunity to learn (OTL) and Subject Level Success (SS) from 2004 to 2012 in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade math coursework (Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Summative Math) were examined. The California Standards Test (CST) data, which comes from the California Department of Education (CDE) website, was used to calculate the opportunity to learn and success rates. Essentially, the unadjusted scores of OTL and SS greatly increased between 2004 and 2012. The magnitude of the OTL changes were very large, ranging from 26 to 49 percent. Along the same lines, the success changes were very large, ranging from 39 to 70 percent. ❧ Numerous research studies have documented that raw achievement tests scores cannot be used for accountability purposes because they are highly correlated with socioeconomic status. Input-adjusted scores are a promising alternative to value-added measurements introduced by Hocevar and his colleagues at the University of Southern California. In marked contrast to value-added measurements, the composite input-adjusted scores for both OTL and SS scores were internally consistent (alphaOTL2011 = 0.79 and alphaSS2011 = 0.87) and stable (rOTL2011 = 0.90 and rSS2011 = 0.85). Potential uses for input-adjusted scores in practice are discussed