• Measures a student's performance at one single point in time
• Is highly correlated with a student's demographics
• Compares student performance to a standard
• Is critical to a student's post-secondary opportunities

• Measures a student's growth across time; i.e., across years
• Is typically not related to a student's demographics
• Compares student performance to the student's own prior performance
• Is critical to ensuring a student's future academic success

Value-added is a statistical analysis used to measure the academic growth rates of groups of students from year to year with a district, school or teacher. Conceptually and as a simple explanation, a value-added "score" is calculated in the following manner:

• Growth = Current Achievement/current results compared to all Prior Achievement/prior results; with achievement being measured by a quality assessment such as the grade-level state assessments.
• The methodology used in EVAAS for value-added assessment was developed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
• EVAAS is an educational visualization and analysis solution that has been published since 1997, and has been peer-reviewed nationally.

EVAAS is a statistical analysis of student assessment data, such as the grade-level state assessments. It provides districts and their schools with growth data to add to achievement data. This lens of measuring student learning provides educators with valuable information to ensure they are meeting the academic needs of cohorts of students as well as individual students.

To help you understand EVAAS analysis, think of academic growth in terms of a child's physical growth and the growth charts used by a child's physician. Growth charts are an important tool for monitoring a child's development, but they are just one of the indicators used by the physician to ensure a child is growing at the minimum expected level and on the trajectory to grow as expected. A physician would not use a growth chart in isolation to diagnose a child; however, the growth chart would provide valuable information that might warrant further exploration.

EVAAS offers an objective, more accurate way to measure student growth among Michigan's public districts and schools. With this information, educators are better able to:

• Monitor the growth of all groups of students from low-achieving to high-achieving, ensuring growth opportunities for all students
• Measure student achievement as a result of the impact of educational practices, classroom curricula, instructional methods, and professional development
• Make informed, data-driven decisions about where to focus resources to help students make greater growth and perform at higher levels
• Modify and differentiate instruction to address the needs of all students
• Align professional development efforts in the areas of greatest need
• Network with other districts and schools that might yield different growth results
• Identify best practices and implement programs that best meet the needs of their students

EVAAS provides two types of information, value-added (or growth) data on cohorts of students and student-level projection data.

The value-added, or growth, analyzes available data from previous years (looking back) to help schools evaluate how much cohorts of students have gained in a school year by answering questions such as: Did a group of students make a year's worth of growth for a year's worth of schooling?

The projection data uses the data already analyzed to help schools project (looking forward) to the future by answering questions such as: What is the percent likelihood of a student being proficient on a future grade-level state assessment? Projection data can be used for intervention planning and resource reallocation.

EVAAS reporting uses data from the following assessments:

• M-STEP and PSAT 8 in English language arts and math in grades 4-8
• M-STEP in social studies in grades 5, 8, and 11
• M-STEP in science in grades 4-8 and 11
• PSAT 8/9 and PSAT 10
• SAT

EVAAS is one of the many tools provided to districts from the Michigan Department of Education. Districts and schools are using EVAAS, in conjunction with achievement data, to make sure all students are on the trajectory to proficiency. Using all the data available (growth and achievement), educators are able to make data-informed instructional decisions to ensure the academic growth and achievement of all students.