Provo district staff present NWEA midyear results showing mixed progress and high predictive correlation

Provo School District staff presented midyear assessment results showing strong statistical correlations between NWEA benchmark scores and expected end-of-year outcomes, but said growth to date is below the levels needed to meet district proficiency targets.

Nate Mitchell, staff member, told the Board that district-specific correlations between beginning-of-year NWEA scores and last year’s RISE results were “fantastically high.” He said correlations in the district approach the high end of the national range and that a 0.7 correlation (roughly 50 percent explanatory power when squared) is considered strong. “So we’re seeing 0.9 correlations, which means we have 80% explanatory power,” Mitchell said.

The presentation separated achievement (percentile bands of students’ performance) from growth (percentile growth between test windows). Mitchell said the district predicted that students at about the 60th percentile on NWEA would be likely to reach state proficiency on end-of-level assessments; but midyear growth in math did not meet the median growth that would sustain that prediction.

Mitchell and other staff emphasized the diagnostic value of NWEA compared with grade-level-only instruments. He said Acadience (the k–3 benchmark referenced by staff) and state end-of-level tests often pitch items at a single grade, which limits visibility into growth for students far above or below grade level. “Acadience math has a big fluency component,” staff said when explaining why a drop from one benchmark to another can reflect differences in fluency rather than content knowledge.

Staff highlighted a new classroom-level scatter-plot report showing both achievement and growth for individual students. Mitchell said the visualizations help identify multiple patterns — high achievement with low growth, low achievement with high growth, and so on — and can point principals toward which teachers and classrooms might need support or be models for dissemination.

Superintendent Wendy Dow and staff said the district will continue training principals and teachers on interpretation and proctoring logistics and will use the NWEA findings to set intervention targets and professional development. Staff noted the assessment window and proctoring routines were new in some buildings and that part of the midyear underperformance likely reflects test familiarity and implementation differences rather than only instructional gaps.

District staff recommended using the NWEA measures to refine interventions and to continue local monitoring as the district approaches end-of-year testing windows.