Re: Converting scores to national percentiles

[aburke5054@aol.com]

 Like I said, a "ballpark estimate."

Art



-----Original Message-----
From: Samuel Lubell <samlubell@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Tue, Jul 13, 2010 8:27 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Converting scores to national percentiles


Since the New York tests are only given in NY, the only way to get any national figures on them is if someone examined a national test taken by the same students and matched them. 
 
Even so, if there are only four options for a score (1, 2, 3, 4) any national percentile would be a very wide range. 
 
On 7/13/2010 9:01 PM, aburke5054@aol.com wrote: 
>   "National percentiles" are statistics calculated on a (presumably) nationally-representative group of students. You should be able to find the percentage of students who score at each level of the New York tests. So if a child's national percentiles in reading and math are way below the cumulative percentages for scores of 4, your ballpark estimate is that the child is not at the 4 level on the NY tests. 
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> Art 
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> -----Original Message----- 
> From: ElsaHaas<ElsaHaas@si.rr.com> 
> To: arn-l@interversity.org 
> Sent: Tue, Jul 13, 2010 9:28 am 
> Subject: [arn-l] Converting scores to national percentiles 
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> New York State has a Mathematics test and an English Language Arts test for 
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> the public schools. Each test gives the kid a score between 1 and 4, with 4 
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> being the highest score. 
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> How can I find out roughly what those scores are equivalent to in terms of 
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> national percentiles? 
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> I realize that this will vary from year to year and that it's controversial 
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> and political - I just want to get a rough idea. 
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> The reason I'm asking this is that sometimes parents who have been 
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> homeschooling want to know what their kids' national percentile scores on 
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> tests like the CAT (we homeschoolers get to choose from a list of approved 
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> tests, and one of them is an old version of the CAT) can tell them about the 
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> likelihood of the kid's getting into, for example, a sixth-grade gifted 
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> program that requires a 4 in both English and Math on the NYS tests. I just 
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> tell them, "It's complicated." 
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> Any pointers? 
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> Thanks, 
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> Elsa 
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