The effects of advanced math placement on advanced math students' Arkansas middle-level Benchmark Exam performance and school performance ratin

With increasing emphasis on high stakes testing, decision makers are motivated to employ the best possible scheduling and student placement practices. While advanced math placement is common as early as middle school grades, the effect of such placement on high stakes, grade level tests has not been sufficiently addressed. This study examines the achievement trends of advanced and regular math placement students on mandated norm and criterion-referenced tests. Over 3,300 seventh, eighth, and ninth grade student observations consisting of test scores from three Arkansas State required exams and one national exam were collected over a five-year period (2000-2004). Test scores from the national exam, Stanford Achievement Test 9 (SAT9), were used as a covariate. Descriptive statistics, correlation, paired t-test, MANOVA, ANOVA, ANCOVA and Chi Square were used to analyze the data.;When comparing advanced math placement students with non-advanced math students and controlling for initial student achievement differences, ANCOVA results presented a significant difference in the adjusted test scores between the two groups. Students having been enrolled in seventh grade algebra had the highest mean scale score on the eighth grade Benchmark while grade level, or ninth grade, students had the lowest mean. Overall, two year advanced math students scored highest on the Benchmark Exam, one year advanced math students scored second highest, and grade level students scored lowest even after Benchmark scores were adjusted by using the SAT9 as a covariate. Results support a 1992 NAEP assessment that eighth graders enrolled in algebra courses had consistently higher average proficiencies than students who had not been enrolled in algebra and that a powerful indicator of mathematics achievement is course-taking.;Additionally, a Chi Square test of independence results revealed that advanced math placement students did not contribute to a negative influence on a school's performance rating. Students' individual performance categories were not independent of advanced math placement. A student's enrollment in advanced math posed a positive influence on the school's performance rating.;Results of the study indicate advanced math placement has a positive effect on students' grade level standardized test scores and the school's overall performance rating.