Student Inclusion/Exclusion Rules

In order to receive a growth percentile score in a state assessment content area, a student needs to have valid scores in that content area from two consecutive years, following a normal grade progression. This is just for a growth percentile to be calculated. For that growth score to be reported in a school or district summary, there are a few rules that exclude students for reasons of fairness:

Old Rule (based on AYP)

School Level: Growth percentile scores are included in school summary calculations only for those students whose growth scores reflect two consecutive years continuously enrolled in the same school (or in the next school level up within the same district, such as from a middle school to a high school), and who were not expelled in the second of those two years.
District Level: Growth percentile scores are included in district summary calculations only for those students whose growth scores reflect two consecutive years continuously enrolled in the same district.
State Level: All growth percentile scores are included in calculations.

2010 Rule (based on Oct. 1)

School Level: Growth percentile scores are included in school summary calculations for those students that do not have a 1 in the Oct. 1 New to School field, and who were not expelled in that academic year.
District Level: Growth percentile scores are included in district summary calculations for those students continuously enrolled in the same district in the current and prior year, OR who do not have a 1 in the Oct. 1 New to School field. Students in detention centers with districts as their LEAs are also not included.
State Level: All growth percentile scores are included in calculations.

In plain language, under the 2010 rules a school owns a student's growth data if s/he was enrolled in that school by Oct. 1 and was not subsequently expelled. A district owns a student's growth data if s/he was enrolled by Oct. 1 in one of the district's schools (and not in a detention center), or if s/he was listed as continuous in district.

The net effect of this change in exclusion rules is to include more students in school and district calculations, especially those who may have switched schools or districts after the CSAP testing window but who were in their seats by Oct. 1 of the current year.

Note that there is no mention of test invalidation codes in these rules. Because students without current and prior year valid test scores in a normal grade progression do not receive growth percentiles, there is no need for any discussion around growth score aggregations for students with invalidated test scores.