In Pennsylvania, high school students are required to take Keystone exams associated with Keystone courses; participation prior to graduation is required for federal accountability purposes. The School District of Philadelphia’s Board of Education’s Goal 4 is focused on improving the reading and math performance of grades 9-11 students on the Keystones. To track progress toward the Goal, the District examines the performance of students on “Leading Indicators,” the within-year assessments of reading and math skills administered multiple times between the annual Keystone exams. This report examines the statistical relationship of Winter and Spring Star performance and Keystone performance in 2021-22.
Key findings include:
- About 90% of students who scored in the highest performance group on Star Reading also performed Proficient or Advanced on the Literature Keystone.
- About 70% of students who scored in the highest performance group on Star Math also performed Proficient or Advanced on the Algebra 1 Keystone.
- The positive predictive value (i.e., Winter and Spring Star predicting Keystone performance) was higher for reading assessments (90%-92%) than math assessments (72%), but the sensitivity (i.e., the accuracy of Star in predicting Keystone performance out of students who had proficient Keystone performance) was higher for math assessments (68%-69%) than reading assessments (56%-57%).
- Correlations between Star Unified Scale Scores and Keystone Scale Scores were strong between Star Reading and the Literature Keystone (r = 0.70-0.74) and between Star Math and the Algebra 1 Keystone (r = 0.71-0.72).