1. Data Enhanced Educational Decisions: EVAAS
Janet Johnson
Cindy Corcoran
Kenneth Gattis

2. Learning Outcomes Participants will
Understand how to use EVAAS to align services, support, and enriched challenges for students.
This presentation will teach you how to use EVAAS to align services for students. The services could be support or enriched challenges. Some students need extra support to be successful, and some need more challenging work to grow from where they are.

3. Data Depends on goal. http://forms.edstaranalytics.com/suggested-data/
We have created cheat sheets to help interpret data. The url here gives you the web link to get a cheat sheet. Which data is relevant depends on the goal, so we have a menu of different goals. What data is available depends on the grade level of the students. We offer many choices so that you can select data that is available. EVAAS is one choice. EVAAS is more powerful than other standardized tests, because it considers more information. A student could have bombed a standardize test, but in general does very well. In a case like that, EVAAS is likely to predict a higher score in the future whereas looking at the last standardized test would give lower expectations for the student.

4. Predictive Analytics is Looking for Doppelgängers
Target: Women whose buying habits change similar to the women registered for baby showers are predicted to be pregnant and sent coupons. Previous baseball players with similar traits and statistics are predicted to perform like those players before them. Examining previous data on insurance claims of people convicted of insurance fraud creates prediction models to identify people likely to be committing fraud. People who bought the book you just bought, also like ______.
Just to make sure everyone understands what predictive analytics is, we want to give some examples. Predictive analytics is a new relatively new science. Predictive analytics basically looks for patterns. One interesting example of this is from Target. They learned that it is easiest to influence peoples’ buying habits when they are making major life changes, including having children. They looked at the previous buying habits of women who had registered for baby showers and looked for patterns. The then looked at the women in their entire database whose buying habit changes matched the women known to be pregnant, and “predicted” that these women were pregnant. They then targeted them with marketing. This was discovered when women started wondering how Target knew they were pregnant and they hadn’t told anyone. Target explained this to a reporter.
Insurance companies now use predictive analytics. They look at the previous patterns in the data of people who have been caught in insurance fraud. They then look at people whose claim patterns match those and keep an extra eye on them for insurance fraud.
Baseball teams use predictive analytics to make decisions about players. It is everywhere.
EVAAS is proprietary, so we don’t know the formulas. But, in our experience, it makes good predictions.

5. Predictions for Individual Students
EVAAS helps us find individual students who:
would be successful in advanced courses with little or no help
need additional support to succeed
A major difference between statistics of old and predictive analytics is that EVAAS can make predictions for individual students. You can identify students are likely to be successful in advanced classes, and those who need additional support to be successful. We don’t have to rely on demographic group membership as was often done in the past, using averages and generalizations.

6. Two Types of Information
EVAAS
Value Added Growth Measure (Looking Back)
For Groups of Students Only
Projections (Looking Forward)
For Individual Students and Groups of Students
EVAAS provides two types of Information- A Value Added Growth Measure and Projections for predicting outcomes.
Value Added Growth Measures will allow you to look at groups of students.
Projections will allow you to look at both individual and groups of students.

7. Two Types of Information
EVAAS
Value Added Growth Measure (Looking Back)
For Groups of Students Only
Projections (Looking Forward)
For Individual Students and Groups of Students
We are going to look at projections.

8. Academic Preparedness Report (Looking Forward)
The Student Academic Preparedness Report gives us student projections. If this report is not ready yet, you can use the Custom Student Report and get the same information. We’ll show you both.

9. This is what you get from a Student Academic Preparedness Report
This is what you get from a Student Academic Preparedness Report. You select the standardized test from the future, for a grade and subject. Students in the blue have already taken the test. For example, 9th graders who took Math I in 8th grade would be in the Blue wedge. The table tells you how many students are in each section. You can use one of our cheat sheets to interpret the data. The numbers are hyperlinks. If you click on them, you get the names of the students in that wedge.

10. Custom Student Report
If you need to do a Custom Student Report, because you want a different range, or because the Student Academic Preparedness Reports are not updated and therefore not available, select the report here.

11. Set Parameters
You have to name the report, then “add students.” This screen has two different examples on it. At the top, you see I selected End of Course for the test, then Math I Level 4 as the subject and level. I entered 80% to 100% for the lower and upper range. This is the range we designate as Blue on our Tower of Hope. If you submit there, you get the roster of students.
We show a second example here. You can add other criteria but choosing “And” and giving another range. I set this up to add the students in the Blue range for their English II prediction. You might want to know who is in the Blue for both math and English.

12. Rosters by Probability
This is what the roster looks like.

13. Activity Run an Academic Preparedness Report for Math I
Sort the roster by Achievement Probability
Count the number in each Tower of Hope band:
Red = 0 to 40
Yellow = 40 + to 70
Green = 70+ to 80
Blue = 80+
Enter your numbers into
You might try running these reports. We have a web app on the url here that lets you enter the numbers and generate a Tower of Hope.

14. It looks like this. It helps some people to see the color bands
It looks like this. It helps some people to see the color bands. You can also use this to print out a pre-Tower and use it to think about what you want your measurable objectives to be.

15. Picture: Desired Outcome
Post
Pre
You might have the Pre-Tower, and want your Post-Tower to look like this.

16. Student Predictions
You can get predictions for individual students. Click on a student name. Then select Student Projection Report. You get a big list of things you can project. Lets take a look at the ACT English subscale projection.

17. Predicted to Meet Benchmark?
The orange line is the benchmark. This is what the student needs to score to not need remediation in English when in college. It is also the requirement for the Community College multiple measures admission requirements. The yellow line shows this student’s prediction. He is predicted to score above the benchmark.

18. WFRMS moved students to advanced, extra help electives based on EVAAS.
Minority student achievement in 8th grade math went from 66% to 82% in one year!
How do we know EVAAS is right about it’s predictions? We have seen the results. One school we worked with on their School Improvement Plan used EVAAS to find “Blue” students who were not recommended for taking Algebra or Math I in middle school. They also found “Red” students who were not getting extra help. They placed the Blue students in the top math, and the Red students in an elective to get extra math help. The school counselors worked with the Blue students who were moved to the advanced courses, to help them adjust to the higher expectations. These are the results. In one year their achievement gap closed. All of the Blue students moved into the advanced math track were successful, and many of them were more successful than the students who had been recommended for the advanced math originally.

19. Two Types of Information
EVAAS
Value Added Growth Measure (Looking Back)
For Groups of Students Only
Projections (Looking Forward)
For Individual Students and Groups of Students
Types of Information Facilitator – DPS (2 minutes)
EVAAS provides two types of Information- A Value Added Growth Measure and Projections for predicting outcomes.
Value Added Growth Measures will allow you to look at groups of students.
Projections will allow you to look at both individual and groups of students.

20. Growth vs. Proficiency
In the past, we have been focused on proficiency. The No Child Left Behind legislation focused on proficiency rates of subgroups. Goals were written in terms of the percentages of students reaching minimum proficiency levels.
We are now interested in student growth and proficiency. EVAAS predicts the likelihood of proficiency and predicts the growth a student is on target for.
In this example, both these students are 5th graders. The student in the top row came into 5th grade reading at the 1st grade level. This means he has probably never made a full year’s growth in a school year. The student in the bottom row came in reading at the 8th grade level. Expected growth is a function what is known about past growth. The student in the top row would not be expected to make as much growth in reading as the student on the bottom.
At the end of the year, the student in the top row is reading at the 4th grade level. He made 3 years growth in one year, far exceeding what would have been predicted. Whatever intervention he got, the teacher’s efforts, and support he received resulted in significant value add over what was expected. Is he proficient? No. He is leaving 5th grade reading at the 4th grade level.
The student in the bottom row made no growth. He is leaving 5th grade at the same level he came in. He’s proficient, but he made no growth. For the No Child Left Behind reports, this would look fine. Now, using Value Added models, this is not okay. We want to see all students make their expected growth or better. We are not only worried about the student in the top row. We need to get everyone into educational situations that result in growth from where they started.
© 2013 EDSTAR, Inc.

21. EVAAS Reports for Growth: Diagnostics

22. Select the Roster

23. Custom Diagnostic: Is an intervention effective, and if so, for whom?
Effective for low and average students, but not for the highest students.