New Jersey Department of Education

Understanding the 2021-22 ESSA Academic Progress (Growth) Measure: Relative School Improvement Measure (RSIM)

Based on extensive stakeholder engagement, New Jersey’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) State Plan weighs academic progress, or “growth”, measures more heavily than other metrics, such as proficiency. The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) selected median student growth percentiles (mSGPs) to measure academic progress in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics for grades 4–8 (non-high schools).

Because data is not available to calculate mSGPs for 2021-22, the NJDOE received approval in the COVID-19 State Plan Addendum (PDF) to use a modified approach to calculate academic progress for the 2021-22 school year. The NJDOE will use the Relative School Improvement Measure for 2021-22 ESSA School Accountability and resume measuring academic progress using mSGPs for the 2022-23 school year.

Overview of the Relative School Improvement Measure (RSIM)

The NJDOE developed RSIM as one of several metrics to use to identify schools that may need additional support as compared to schools that had similar performance prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The RSIM can also show the NJDOE what schools may have outperformed schools with similar prior year performance.

It is a relative improvement measure, like student growth percentiles, so a school’s performance is based on a comparison to other schools, not strictly on the actual change in scale score. This means that it is possible to have a high or low RSIM score, regardless of prior year performance. It is also possible to have an RSIM that meets the annual target, even if a school’s proficiency level has gone down. It all depends on how other schools with similar prior year aggregate scores performed in 2021-22.


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