The Correlation Between the SAT College-Readiness Benchmarks and Graduation Rates At

The Correlation Between the SAT College-Readiness Benchmarks and Graduation Rates at

Delaware Public High Schools

Breanne Prisco

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of

Wilmington University in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Education

Innovation and Leadership

Wilmington University

May 2018

The Correlation Between the SAT College-Readiness Benchmarks and Graduation Rates at

Delaware Public High Schools

Breanne Prisco

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standards required by Wilmington University as a dissertation for the degree of

Doctor of Education in Innovation and Leadership.

Jenine E. Buchanan, Ed.D., Chairperson of Dissertation Committee

Brian J. Raygor, Ed.D., Member of Dissertation Committee

Sean E. Moriarty, Ed.D., Member of Dissertation Committee

John C. Gray, Ed.D., Professor & Dean, College of Education

Dedication

First and foremost, I’d like to dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Anthony Prisco, who has taken this doctoral journey with me and supported all of my scattered ideas and babbling as I focused on this process. I love you and am so proud of us!

I’d also like to dedicate this dissertation to my father, Dr. Eugene McMillen of WilmU

Ed.D. Cohort 12. His experience and success inspired me to continue my educational journey through Wilmington University.

Next, I’d like to dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Barbara McMillen, RN, BSN,

MSN, and my sister, Lt. Bailea McMillen of the U.S. Coast Guard, for their continual support and pretend-listening as I described every part of the program.

Next, I’d like to dedicate this dissertation to my father-in-law, Thomas Prisco; mother-in- law, Mary Patricia Prisco; and brother-in-law, Tom Prisco, for all their support and tolerance as I used every moment free to do research and write, even during visits and holidays.

Finally, I’d like to dedicate this dissertation to the rest of Cohort 25 who took this journey with us. I am so proud to have met such intelligent and wonderful people, and I will forever remember our experiences and all the laughs over the years. Congratulations to us all for making it this far!

iii

Acknowledgements

Wilmington University: Thank you to the institution for its organization, dedication, and support of students at all levels.

Dr. Jenine Buchanan: Thank you to my amazing advisor for guiding me through the entire dissertation process and weathering my grammatical errors. I will always remember how we are kindred spirits with our matching banned-book-socks.

Drs. Brian Raygor and Sean Moriarty: Thank you for participating on my dissertation committee and offering invaluable feedback and guidance throughout the process.

Drs. Joseph Crossen and Michael Czarkowski: Thank you for interviewing me and admitting me to Cohort 25, allowing me to catch up after the first class.

Dr. Pamela Curtiss: Thank you for helping me jump-start the dissertation journey.

Thank you to all the wonderful professors in whose presence I was graced with learning: Dr. Atkinson, Dr. Crossen, Dr. Czarkowski, Dr. Pritchard, Dr. Sutton, Dr. Carmean, Dr.

Massare, Dr. Umstead, Dr. Owens, Dr. Marinucci, Dr. Buchanan, and Dr. Siebert.

The Indian River School District and Dr. Susan Bunting: Thank you to the staff and administration at Sussex Central High School, Dr. Susan Bunting, and the IRSD for answering all my questions and helping guide me through the process with resources and patience.

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the nature of a relationship between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks for math and evidence-based reading and writing on the School-

Day SAT and graduation rates for Delaware public high schools. The data collected represented the School-Day SAT from 2011-2015 and the corresponding graduation years from 2012-2016.

All data were ex post facto and publicly available through the Delaware Department of

Education website. The researcher used Microsoft Excel to perform a Pearson r correlation coefficient formula with the data. The resulting r-value of +0.47 indicated a moderate, positive correlation between the variables. Additionally, the researcher used the averages across disaggregated groupings to analyze trends in the percentages of students meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks and graduation rates over the same time period. Overall, the data support that Delaware’s education system has been consistent in its implementation of academics and graduation requirements. The researcher concludes with recommendations for practice to increase the implementation of SAT skills within Delaware public high schools as well as for future research to further analyze these variables to inform best practices.

Table of Contents

Dedication ...... iii

Acknowledgements ...... iv

Abstract ...... v

List of Tables ...... x

List of Figures ...... xi

Chapter

I Introduction 1

Background ...... 1

College initiatives ...... 2

Delaware’s college vision ...... 5

Problem Statement ...... 6

Study Purpose ...... 7

Need for the Study ...... 8

Research Questions ...... 9

Definitions of Terms ...... 9

Benchmark...... 9

College-readiness...... 10

Delaware public high school groupings...... 10

Traditional public high schools in New Castle County ...... 10

Traditional public high schools in Kent County ...... 11

Traditional public high schools in Sussex County ...... 11 vi

Public vocational and technical high schools ...... 11

Public charter and special-curriculum high schools ...... 11

Graduation rate...... 12

School-Day SAT...... 12

Standardized tests...... 12

Definitions of Abbreviations...... 13

II Literature Review ...... 17

Inclusion Criteria ...... 17

College-Readiness Agencies ...... 18

National Assessment of Educational Progress...... 18

College Board...... 19

ACT...... 19

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers...... 19

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium...... 20

Common Core State Standards...... 20

College-readiness...... 20

College Preparation in High School ...... 22

College-readiness in Delaware...... 25

College-readiness benchmarks...... 27

The Standards Movement ...... 28

Elementary and Secondary Education Act...... 31

No Child Left Behind...... 33 vii

Common Core State Standards ...... 34

Every Student Succeeds Act...... 35

Standardized assessments...... 37

Delaware standardized assessments ...... 40

Delaware School-Day SAT ...... 41

Summary ...... 42

III Methodology ...... 44

Research Design...... 44

Participants/Sampling Strategy ...... 45

Variables...... 48

Sample...... 48

Instrumentation & Data Collection ...... 49

Data Analysis Procedures ...... 49

Limitations ...... 50

Sampling...... 50

Variables...... 51

College-Readiness...... 51

Ethical Issues ...... 52

IV Results and Analysis ...... 53

Overview of the Study ...... 53

Description of Variables ...... 54

The Results...... 54 viii

Pearson r...... 54

Grouping trends with Pearson r ...... 57

Annual trends SAT...... 58

Annual trends graduation rates...... 60

Summary ...... 62

V Summary and Conclusion ...... 64

Introduction ...... 64

Summary and Discussion ...... 64

Limitations of the Study...... 66

Implications and Recommendations ...... 67

For practice ...... 67

For research ...... 68

Conclusion ...... 69

References ...... 70

Appendix A: Human Subjects Review Committee Packet ...... 81

Appendix B: Raw Data ...... 89

List of Tables

Table 1: Summary of Accountability Assessments ...... 39

Table 2: Correlation General Interpretation ...... 55

Table 3: Correlation for Whole State by Year ...... 56

Table 4: Correlation of the School-Day SAT and Graduation Rates for each Graduating

Class by Group ...... 57

Table 5: Average Percentage Meeting SAT Benchmarks for Delaware ...... 58

Table 6: Average Percentage Meeting SAT Benchmarks by Group ...... 59

Table 7: Average Graduation Rate for Delaware by Graduation Year ...... 60

Table 8: Average Graduation Rate by Group ...... 61

Table 9: Research Questions and Conclusions ...... 66

List of Figures

Figure 1: Correlation between meeting the benchmark and graduation rates over time ...... 56

Figure 2: Correlation for each graduating class by group ...... 58

Figure 3: Average graduation rates over time ...... 62

Chapter I

Introduction

Background

A prevailing phrase in education right now is college-readiness (Achieve, 2017; Big

Future, 2017; Conley, 2007; Conley, 2008; Kirst & Venezia, 2006; Tepe, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2016a). Previously, kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) systems had aimed to prepare students for working in the real world; however, because college degrees are increasingly required prior to entering the workforce, K-12 systems now focus on preparing students for college (Achieve, 2017; Big Future, 2017; Kirst & Venezia, 2006; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). However, researchers are finding there are at national, state, and local levels, multiple interpretations for what constitutes college-readiness (Achieve, 2017; Big

Future, 2017; Conley, 2007; Kirst & Venezia, 2006; Tepe, 2015; U.S. Department of Education,

2016a). Several researchers define a college-ready student as one who enrolls and is successful in pursuing credit-bearing courses toward a college degree from the beginning of the first year of study (Arnold, Lu, & Armstrong, 2012; Conley, 2008).

The United States Department of Education (USDOE) argues that too many students require remedial courses in college (nearly one-third of the entering freshmen in 2016), which indicates a large number of new high school graduates are underprepared for the rigors of a college curriculum (U.S. Department of Education, 2016a). Another study of colleges in 44 states by the Hechinger Report corroborated the lack of college-readiness by reporting that

569,751 of incoming freshmen at 911 colleges tested into remedial courses for the 2014-2015 school year, which is a number they predicted to rise over time (Butrymowicz, 2018). Part of the 1

large remedial cohort issue may be that no one knows whom to hold accountable for ensuring the preparedness of college students. There is general consensus among researchers that everyone is responsible to a certain extent including students; parents; teachers; administrators; and local, state, and national government agencies (Arnold et al., 2012; Conley, 2007; Kirst & Venezia,

2006). In addition to the responsibility consensus is the idea that high schools and colleges need to work in conjunction with one another to help promote college-readiness in high school students before students graduate and begin college (Arnold et al., 2012; Conley, 2007; Kirst &

Venezia, 2006).

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds

Act (ESSA), which is the overarching reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary

Education Act (ESEA) (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). One of ESSA’s mandates is that students should be held to higher standards in K-12 education and provided with equitable chances at attending institutions of higher learning (U.S. Department of Education, 2015).

However, there are no specific laws at any level defining college-readiness, how it should be determined, or assessing any penalties for specific failures (U.S. Department of Education,

2015). One current trend in education is that students should be given opportunities to attend college (U.S. Department of Education, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2016b). In order to support the college-readiness emphasis for students, the USDOE asserted that K-12 schools should hold students to standards helping them be successful in college (U.S. Department of

Education, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2016b).

College initiatives. Most states use one or more of the following standardized tests to determine college-readiness: American College Testing program (ACT) (19 states or 38%), 2

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (8 states or 16%), Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for

College and Careers (PARCC) (5 states and Washington DC or 10%), Smarter Balanced

Assessment Consortium (SBAC) (9 states or 18%), or specific state-designed assessments (25 states or 50%) (Gewertz, 2017; Tepe, 2015). The diversity of the tests utilized shows how divergent the definitions of college-readiness are. Many colleges set benchmarks for these major tests to consider their applicants’ college-readiness; whether the state uses that test or not, the definition being set or used by the college can (and does) vary greatly from school to school— not to mention state to state (Big Future, 2017; Tepe, 2015; U.S. Department of Education,

2016b). If a student in one state is deemed college-ready by his or her high school and locally aligned college(s), he or she may be deemed less than ready by another college or state. Thus, the tests that exist to attempt to standardize the definition of college-readiness just serve to further diversify that definition (Tepe, 2015).

Pressure from the state and national levels of educational administration and lawmakers has increasingly stressed higher rates of college attendance and graduation, especially during the

Obama administration (Smith, 2015; Tepe, 2015). Additionally, the affordability of college has become a major point of discussion across the United States (U.S. Department of Education,

2018; Baum, 2017; Smith, 2015). However, many of the national initiatives have focused on how to make college affordable and desirable. Specifically, in September 2015 President Obama announced that he had assembled a coalition to work on making community colleges tuition free

(Smith, 2015). The initiative was called America’s College Promise, modeled after a similar initiative that provided free college called the “Tennessee Promise,” which was also followed by statewide movements in several states including Oregon, Michigan, and Georgia (Georgia 3

Student Finance Commission, 2018; Smith, 2015). America’s College Promise was also modeled after Delaware DOE created the Student Excellence Equals Degree (SEED) scholarship that was implemented in 2007, which provides two free years of higher education within the community college system throughout the state (Office of the Governor, 2016; Delaware Technical

Community College, 2018b).

In September 2016 the United States Department of Education released “America’s

College Promise Playbook,” which is “a comprehensive and up-to-date resource guide that provides practitioners with relevant and actionable information about how they can offer more students access to an affordable, high-quality education” (U.S. Department of Education, 2016b, para. 1). This resource focuses on the college level, but it may still help high schools strategize and come up with incentives and promotions to get students excited about these new, affordable, and supportive college opportunities. This resource also offers case studies and examples of initiatives that may be implemented in colleges (and subsequently high schools with a little creativity) in all locations: state, city, urban, and rural (U.S. Department of Education, 2016b).

Other proposals and programs for college-readiness have been made throughout the country such as Senator Bernie Sanders’ push to make college free for everyone (Friends of

Bernie Sanders, 2018). Additionally, many college-readiness promotional programs have already been implemented throughout the country in addition to the Promise initiative such as the

Delaware SEED program (Delaware Technical Community College, 2018b). Finally, the most commonly used standardized tests (SAT, ACT, and PARCC) are also available and used nationwide (Tepe, 2015). Other than these tests and the Promise initiative, there is no specific mandate or law that governs college-readiness within the United States. 4

Delaware’s college vision. Delaware is a small state; it is ranked 45th for population and

49th for area (Drexel University, 2018). The state has a broad community college system.

Delaware Technical Community College has five campuses across the state. Delaware also has six four-year colleges and universities that offer several types of institutional atmospheres. Those institutions of higher learning include public and private, large and small, residential, and historically black, one specialty law school, and a college of art and design. In this respect

Delaware is unique in its collegiate makeup for such a small geographical area. Similarly, opportunities are varied and readily available for high school students who are pursuing higher education.

Each year, the Delaware DOE publishes the “College Success Report.” The report highlights college statistics such as course success rates, remedial enrollment rates, and attrition rates for Delawareans along with the college-readiness of Delaware high schools based on the reported SAT scores (Delaware Department of Education, 2016). Additionally, the Delaware

DOE developed a resource titled Delaware Goes to College that offers resources for all high school students from how to prepare for college admission and standardized test preparation, to how to apply and pay for college (Delaware Department of Education, 2016). This resource also offers scholarship listings that include national opportunities, but more importantly, scholarships specific to Delaware and its three counties (Delaware Department of Education, 2016). Delaware

Goes to College is perhaps the most comprehensive state-level resource offered to support college-readiness.

Even more specifically, Delaware offers an interactive program called College

Application Month. College Application Month is run by the Delaware DOE and involves 5

volunteers, mentors, and educators in supporting students through the college application process. Schools are assigned a specific College Application Week where they focus on providing opportunities and maximum support for seniors to apply to colleges (Delaware

Department of Education, 2016). The state’s colleges (and several other states’ colleges) offer fee waivers for partaking in College Application Month, and high schools are able to use the initiative to get students and staff into excited about applying to college as well as highlight college-readiness in a more interactive and focused time period for all students (Delaware

Department of Education, 2016). However, if students are not prepared for college, these initiatives can only help to a certain extent, but they cannot get the students all the way to being college-ready. With a better understanding of how many Delaware high school graduates are college-ready, these initiatives and the schooling system as a whole may be better tailored to help more students reach their potential.

Problem Statement

It is unknown how meeting the benchmarks on the math and evidenced-based reading and writing (ERW) on the School-Day SAT (formerly the Scholastic Aptitude Test) correlates to graduation rates at Delaware public high schools. From 2011 through 2014, when the SAT was scored out of 2400, the math benchmark score was 520 and the ERW benchmark score was 410

(College Board, 2018b). Since 2014, when the test resumed the composite score of 1600, the math benchmark has been 530 and the ERW benchmark has been 480 (College Board, 2018b).

The State of Delaware uses the School-Day SAT as its mandatory standardized assessment to determine student and school proficiency (Delaware Department of Education,

2017b). By law the Delaware DOE is required to publish the average SAT scores and graduation 6

rates of each high school in the state; however, there have not been any studies completed to analyze the relationship, if any, between the two independent variables of college-readiness and graduation rate.

Study Purpose

The SAT is mandatory for every high school junior in Delaware; therefore, the ex post facto SAT data were available and analyzed to determine the number and percent of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the math and ERW. The purpose of this study was to analyze the ex post facto SAT scores from the public high schools in Delaware from 2011 through 2015 to determine the nature of the relationship between students meeting the college- readiness benchmark on both the SAT math and ERW sections and the graduation rates.

There were four possible outcomes for the data: first, a positive or direct correlation, which would indicate that as the graduation rate increases, so too does the indication of college- readiness as exemplified by students meeting the School-Day SAT benchmarks (also the rejection of the null hypothesis); second, a negative or indirect correlation, which would indicate that as the graduation rate increases, the indication of college-readiness as exemplified by the students meeting the School-Day SAT benchmarks decreases (also the rejection of the null hypothesis); third, a negative correlation, which would indicate that as the graduation rate decreases, the indication of college-readiness as exemplified by the students meeting the School-

Day SAT benchmarks increases; and fourth, an insignificant correlation, which would indicate there is no relationship between meeting the college-readiness benchmarks in math and ERW and the graduation rate (also the acceptance of the null hypothesis).

Need for the Study

Delaware’s Department of Education (DOE) mandates the use of the School-Day SAT at all public high schools as a measure of proficiency and college- and career-readiness. Delaware

DOE made the switch to using the SAT for its academic accountability assessment because, as the Secretary of Education and Governor assert, the SAT helps students and educators gauge college- and career-readiness (May, 2016). The DOE may be particularly interested in the outcome of this study to know if the School-Day SAT and the graduation rates are appropriately measuring success. In a pilot stage, the University of Delaware no longer requires in-state students to submit their SAT scores because they assert that high school grades are a better indication of a student’s college-readiness and potential for success (Zernike, 2016). This assertion raises the question of why the state of Delaware and the DOE even mandates the SAT.

This study will inform and add to the body of data from which the DOE, the University of

Delaware, and other institutions of higher learning are informing their own college-readiness initiatives and practices.

One of the main reasons behind the current national emphasis on college-readiness is “to remain competitive in the global economy the nation must increase the percentage of Americans who enter and graduate with a postsecondary degree or certificate” (Achieve, 2017, para. 1). The world is changing, and in order to successfully keep up with demands, students will need more training to remain competitive with students from across the nation and across the world.

Technology is rapidly overtaking many tasks that used to only be completed by humans. Many of those tasks are now controlled by machines and robots. Accordingly, students need to be more intelligent than ever before (Achieve, 2017; Association of American Colleges and Universities, 8

2002; Butrymowicz, 2018; Conley, 2008; Venezia & Jaeger, 2013); however, many stakeholders both inside and outside of education still assert that K-12 education is not preparing students for college or beyond (Arnold et al., 2012; Conley, 2007; Kirst & Venezia, 2006).

Research Questions

The primary research question guiding this study is: what is the relationship between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT as set by the College

Board and the graduation rates for Delaware public high schools as reported by the Delaware

Department of Education? In answering this question, the results of this study may help educators revise curricula to encourage college-readiness and success.

Two secondary research questions inform the primary question and they are: 1. what are the trends in meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks across the identified groupings of

Delaware public high schools; and 2. what are the trends in the graduation rates across the identified groupings of Delaware public high schools?

Definitions of Terms

Benchmark. The Oxford Living Dictionary online defines benchmark as “A standard or point of reference against which things may be compared” (Benchmark, 2017, para. 1) The

College Board (2017) defines their SAT benchmarks as working “together to help students and educators assess student progress toward college-readiness from year to year” (para. 1).

Therefore, for the purposes of this study, benchmarks are scores on an assessment that define a level of proficiency or lack thereof. The math benchmark score was 520 and the ERW benchmark score was 410 from 2011 through 2014 when the test was scored out of 2400

(College Board, 2018b). Since 2014 when the test resumed the composite score of 1600, the math benchmark is 530 and the ERW benchmark is 480 (College Board, 2018b).

College-readiness. The State of Delaware reported:

Each Delaware student will graduate college- and career-ready. Students will be prepared to successfully plan and pursue an education and career path aligned to their personal goals, with the ability to adapt and innovate as job demands change. Students will graduate with strong academic knowledge, the behaviors and skills with which to apply their knowledge, and the ability to collaborate and communicate effectively. Each student should be an independent learner and have respect for a diverse society and a commitment to responsible citizenship. (Center on Education Policy, 2013, p. 3) College-readiness is a complicated concept, but the simple consensus of a definition for college- and career-readiness is the ability to enroll full-time in and successfully complete credit- bearing college courses toward a certificate or degree (Arnold et al., 2012; Conley, 2008).

Delaware public high school groupings. For the purposes of this study and the comparisons made within, all of the public high schools in Delaware have been divided into five subgroups based on geographical location or like curricula:

Traditional public high schools in New Castle County. These high schools are publicly funded and located within the geographical boundaries of New Castle County, Delaware. Any students living within the schools’ designated, geographical regions, or whom request and are approved for school choice, may attend for free. These schools include: Alexis A. DuPont High

School, Appoquinimink High School, Brandywine High School, Christiana High School,

Concord High School, Glasgow High School, John Dickinson High School, Middletown High

School, Mt. Pleasant High School, Newark High School, Thomas McKean High School, and

William Penn High School.

Traditional public high schools in Kent County. These high schools are publicly funded and located within the geographical boundaries of Kent County, Delaware. Any students living within the schools’ designated, geographical regions, or whom request and are approved for school choice, may attend for free. These schools include: Caesar Rodney High School, Dover

High School, Lake Forest High School, Milford High School, and Smyrna High School.

Traditional public high schools in Sussex County. These high schools are publicly funded and located within the geographical boundaries of Sussex County, Delaware. Any students living within the schools’ designated, geographical regions, or whom request and are approved for school choice, may attend for free. These schools include: Cape Henlopen High

School, Delmar High School, Indian River High School, Laurel High School, Seaford Senior

High School, Sussex Central High School, and Woodbridge High School.

Public vocational and technical high schools. These high schools are the ones throughout the state that specifically teach a vocational and technical curriculum and that are publicly funded from county monies. These schools use a lottery system to admit students from across the county in which they are located. There are six of these high schools throughout

Delaware with a minimum of one per county, which include: Delcastle Technical High School,

Howard High School of Technology, Paul M. Hodgson Vocational Technical High School,

Polytech High School, St. Georges Technical High School, and Sussex Technical High School.

Public charter and special-curriculum high schools. These high schools have ratified charters that establish them as publicly funded schools that teach target curricula. Additionally, 11

in this category are two magnet high schools that function similarly to charter schools, but that are associated with a specific school district. These schools use a lottery system to admit students from across the state, which include: Cab Calloway School for the Arts, Charter School of

Wilmington, Conrad School of Science, and the Delaware Military Academy.

Graduation rate. Graduation rate refers to the percentage of students who graduate from a high school on time. Delaware uses a four-year adjusted cohort model:

…which measures the number and percentage of cohort members who earned a regular high school diploma within four years or less. The cohort is defined as the number of first-time 9th graders followed for four years plus students who transfer-in minus students who transfer out, emigrate, or are deceased during that time period. (Delaware Department of Education, 2017a, p. 1) All of the graduation rate statistics within this study will be based on Delaware’s reported numbers based on their four-year adjusted cohort calculations.

School-Day SAT. The School-Day SAT is the mandatory accountability test in Delaware that is offered on a school day in the spring to every student labeled as eleventh grade. It is offered to every student for free.

Standardized tests. Standardized tests are those that have been normalized across specific content and regions. As defined by The Glossary of Education Reform (Great Schools

Partnership, 2015), standardized tests use banks of approved questions that are scored consistently regardless of any environmental or geographical factors. For example, the SAT,

ACT, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced tests are considered standardized based on how they were developed. However, many states also compose and administer their own standardized tests.

Definitions of Abbreviations

• AAC&U: American Association of College & Universities. This association is dedicated

to promoting and providing equitable access to high-quality education throughout the

United States (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2018).

• ACT: American College Testing. This test is one of the leading standardized assessments

used for proficiency and college entrance exams (Big Future, 2017).

• ASCD: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. This association is

comprised of 114,000 members who are employed by or who advocate for educational

equality for schools, employees, and students (ASCD, 2018).

• AYP: Adequate Yearly Progress. This term was the measure under which schools,

districts, and states were held accountable under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001

(Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, 2011)

• CCSS: Common Core State Standards: These are the academic standards established in

2009 with which many states implement their curricula and standardized assessments for

accountability (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2018a).

• DCAS: Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System. This test was the standardized

accountability test for Delaware students in all subjects prior to the Smarter Balanced

tests (Eccel, 2012).

• DeSSA: Delaware System of Student Assessments. This is the system under which all

Delaware standardized assessments are organized, implemented, analyzed, and reported

(Delaware Department of Education, 2017b).

• DOE: Department of Education. This term is used to represent any department of

education and is preceded by the state or area to which it refers (Eccel, 2012).

• DSTP: Delaware State Testing Program. This was the standardized accountability test for

Delaware students in all subjects prior to the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment

System (Eccel, 2012).

• ERW: Evidence-based Reading and Writing. This is the portion of the SAT and PSAT

tests that covers the humanities subjects and an essay component (College Board, 2018c).

• ESEA: Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This 1965 act is the landmark

educational legislation dictating standards-based education and school/district

accountability (Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965).

• ESSA: Every Student Succeeds Act. This 2015 act is the revision and reauthorization of

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act under President Barack Obama (U.S.

Department of Education, 2015).

• ETS: Educational Testing Service. This is the non-profit testing developer, administrator,

and scorer of many standardized tests including the SAT (Educational Testing Service,

2018).

• HBCU: Historically Black College or University. This abbreviation represents a cohort

of accredited colleges and universities that were established before 1964 and whose

mission it is to education black Americans (U.S. Department of Education, 2017).

• IASA: Improving America’s Schools Act. This is the 1994 revision of the Elementary

and Secondary Education Act (Paul, 2016).

• K-12: Kindergarten through 12th-grade. This is the common abbreviation used to

represent the years of compulsory education for students in the United States and other

countries with similar education systems (K-12, 2018).

• NAEP: National Assessment of Educational Progress. This assessment is a national

standardized test that uses random sampling to compare the proficiency of students from

the United States to those of other counties—colloquially referred to as the Nation’s

Report Card (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012).

• NCLB: No Child Left Behind. This 2002 act is the revision and reauthorization of the

Elementary and Secondary Education Act under President George W. Bush (Paul, 2016).

• PARCC: Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. PARCC is a

standardized assessment created and used by several states as a way to assess the

Common Core State Standards (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and

Careers, 2018).

• PSAT: Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. This test is one of the early standardized

assessments used for proficiency and to prepare students for college entrance exams (Big

Future, 2017).

• R2T: Race to the Top. This program was a grant through the U.S. Department of

Education to encourage states to adopt the Common Core State Standards and meet

Adequate Yearly Progress (Eccel, 2012).

• SAT: Scholastic Aptitude Test. This test is one of the leading standardized assessments

used for proficiency and college entrance exams (Big Future, 2017).

• SBAC: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Smarter Balanced is a suite of

standardized assessments created and used by several states as a way to assess the

Common Core State Standards (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, 2018).

• SBR: Standards-Based Reform. This abbreviation represents the movement in the federal

government to reform public education using standards and standardized assessments as

the revisions and reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act are

implemented (Hamilton, Stecher, & Yuan, 2008).

• SEA: State Education Agency. This term is the encompassing label used by the federal

government to represent the states’ departments of education, which may be referred to

by various titles other than department (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).

• SEED: Student Excellence Equals Degree. This is the scholarship program through

Delaware Technical Community College and the University of Delaware to encourage

Delaware students to study at one or both of the institutions SEED. (Delaware Technical

Community College, 2018b).

• USDOE: United States Department of Education. This is the federal government’s

overarching department to which all state departments of education are held accountable

(U.S. Department of Education, 2010).

Chapter II

Literature Review

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the reports of college- readiness as measured by the College Board benchmark for college-readiness on the School-Day

SAT and the reported graduation rates for Delaware public high schools. A secondary purpose is to highlight any trends in the identified groupings of the public high schools throughout the entire state. To support this purpose, research was conducted on the background of the adoption and use of the School-Day SAT as a college-readiness benchmark in Delaware.

Inclusion Criteria

This literature review was completed based on publications and books produced by educational research experts located both on the internet and in printed format. Additionally, research was collected through the Wilmington University library databases. The primary search tools were EBSCOhost, WorldCat, and Google (both regular and Scholar), the Delaware

Department of Education website, and the SAT website through CollegeBoard.Com. The keywords used both individually and in various combinations included: SAT, ACT, ESEA,

NCLB, Race to the Top, educational standards, standards movement, ESSA, SAT scores, standardized test, college-readiness, college and career readiness, graduation rates, graduation requirements, state testing, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Diane Ravitch, Delaware State

Testing Program, Smarter Balanced, School-Day SAT, college preparation, Delaware public high schools, Delaware Department of Education (DOE), standards movement, Race to the Top,

Common Core State Standards, traditional high school structure, charter high school structure, vocational high school structure. 17

This literature review provides a background of the standardized testing movement as well as an explanation for why Delaware conducts the School-Day SAT. Also included is a comparison and explanation of the SATs alignment to the Common Core State Standards and college-readiness measurement. First this review covers college preparation in high schools looking at the reasoning and efforts involved. Then the synthesis will provide the history of standardized testing culminating with the reasoning for the School-Day SAT being used in

Delaware public high schools as a measurement for college-readiness and as a justification for graduation rates.

College-Readiness Agencies

There are many agencies that influence the idea of college-readiness, standards, and standardized testing in schools. These not-for-profit agencies made up of educational experts include: the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), College Board, ACT

(formerly American College Testing), Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and

Careers (PARCC), Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), and the Common Core

State Standards Initiative (CCSS). While these agencies and their involvement with standards and standardized testing are highlighted, it is important to understand the basic origin of each to better understand how standards and standardized assessments are emphasized in public education.

National Assessment of Educational Progress. This standardized test is colloquially known the Nation’s Report Card and is administered every two years to a random sample of the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade students across the United States (National Center for Education

Statistics, 2016). NAEP began planning and implementing its national assessment in 1964 18

funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation (National Center for Education Statistics,

2012). NAEP now contracts with major businesses including the Educational Testing Service

(ETS), Pearson, and State Education Agencies (SEAs) and educational services to collect and analyze reading, literacy, and mathematics data (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016).

College Board. The College Board was founded in 1900 to increase access to higher education from both the student side and the college side (College Board, 2018a). The College

Board is currently governed by a membership association, which is made up of “leading educational institutions” (College Board, 2018a, para. 2).

ACT. The ACT test was created and administered in 1959 by a University of Iowa education professor E.F. Lindquist and Registrar Ted McCarrell to focus on academic achievement mastery instead of on aptitude (ACT, 2017). Today the ACT claims to be the first to actually define college and career readiness standards, and it is the only college entrance exam to include science (ACT, 2017). ACT is run by a Board of Directors, a team of executive leaders, and a team of emeritus directors all from education and business backgrounds (ACT, 2017).

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. PARCC is “a collaboration of states that share a commitment to developing new-era assessments” (para. 1) that was established in 2010 to adopt and assess the CCSS (Partnership for Assessment of

Readiness for College and Careers, 2018, para. 1). In 2017 the governing board of PARCC voted and selected the New Meridian Corporation to take over the management and content development “for the next phase of the PARCC assessment system” (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 2018).

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Similar to PARCC’s founding, SBAC was created in response to the adoption of the CCSS as many state decided to collaborate in this effort (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, 2018). SBAC claims to be the “‘best of the best’ assessment system” in relation to assessing the CCSS (Smarter Balanced Assessment

Consortium, 2018, para. 8). SBAC used a $178 million federal grant over four years to develop and implement the test before becoming a public agency housed at the University of California and being funded by the participating states (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, 2018).

Common Core State Standards. The CCSS were established in 2009 with education and government leaders from 48 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia through their membership in the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of

Chief State School Officers (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2018a). These standards cover literacy and mathematics and are intended to guide all subject areas in their curriculum development (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2018a). Today states are implementing the CCSS on their own timeline and under their own interpretations (Common Core State

Standards Initiative, 2018a).

College-readiness. Many stakeholders are in support of preparing high school students to be successful in college (ACT, 2018; Arnold et al., 2012; U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of

Labor Statistics, 2017; Delaware Goes to College, 2018; Hess, 2016; U.S. Department of

Education, 2016a). Educational preparation and emphasis on attending and being successful in college is termed college-readiness and is oftentimes paired with career-readiness initiatives; though the college part tends to be emphasized more in public education (ACT, 2018); however, an obstacle to the idea of measuring college-readiness is that there are multiple interpretations of 20

an actual definition (Arnold et al., 2012; Conley, 2008; Hess, 2016; Tierney & Sablan, 2014). As

Hess (2016) points out, college-readiness is understood to mean different things at different colleges depending on a myriad of factors. A web-search using the Google search engine yields

1.6 million results in only 0.04 seconds; however, none of the search results is a dictionary definition as is typical with a clearly defined word or phrase. Given the lack of a dictionary definition, one generalized attempt at a cohesive definition is that college-readiness means a student can enroll and be successful in pursuing credit-bearing courses toward a degree from the beginning of the first year of study (ACT, 2018; Arnold et al., 2012; Conley, 2008; Kramer et al,

2016); however, this is neither a comprehensive nor a dictionary-based definition. Based on this lack of a consistent definition, many students and teachers fall victim to what the Association of

American Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) National Panel describes as “the wasted senior year” (2002, p. 14). The panel members describe how the senior year should be used as a more serious college preparatory time both academically and behaviorally (Association of American

Colleges and Universities, 2002); however, schools tend to lessen in intensity by the senior year in regards to academic rigor on the part of the school and motivation and initiative on the part of the students (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2002). The panel attributes the intensity downgrade to graduation rate pressure and assessment requirements for reasons disconnected with the push for higher education competency (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2002). Additionally, the panel highlights how the emphasis on SAT scores undermines the necessity of the senior year since seniors are generally finished taking and retaking the SAT by the halfway point of their senior year (Association of American Colleges

and Universities, 2002, p. 15). Hess (2016) cautions educational experts and researchers on the idea of college-readiness for all:

First, the idea that we should do a better job of educating all students is a fine one. But what matters more than the aspiration is the execution…. Second, universal aspirations are swell, but students differ in their abilities, gifts, and needs. Not every student will go to college…. Third, if college readiness for all simply means teaching students to be responsible, curious, informed, numerate, literate, persistent, civil, and such, then schools have long been trying to do that—typically with uneven success. (p. 40) Hess (2016) emphasizes how the terminology and motivation of any given educator and educational stakeholder can differ. He further states that “enthusiasts” and anyone promoting college-readiness needs to be clear about their definition and expectation (Hess, 2016, p. 40).

College Preparation in High School

A panel of educators and public service experts met in 2002 to discuss how the educational demands and expectations were changing in the United States. The Greater

Expectations panel was organized through the Association of American Colleges and

Universities (AAC&U), which “is the leading national association devoted to advancing and strengthening liberal learning for all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career” (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2018, p. 79). The Greater

Expectations panel is the facilitating group for the AAC&U's “multi-year initiative to articulate the aims of a 21st century liberal education and identify comprehensive and innovative models that improve learning for all undergraduate students” (Association of American Colleges and

Universities, 2018, para. 1). The chair of the panel was Judith Ramaley, Assistant Director for

Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation. She led the panel of

educators from some of the largest and most distinguished universities such as the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology and business experts from major corporations such as the Carnegie

Corporation of New York. Their focus was to identify and formulate plans to support twenty- first century post-secondary expectations (Association of American Colleges and Universities,

2018).

The panel identified the following issues that needed to be addressed as “Pressures on

Secondary Education (p. 7):

• Changing demographics: minority and immigrant population increases. • New accountability demands: standards-based reform versus teacher training and college preparatory alignment between secondary and post-secondary institutions. • Changing educational policies and practices: new requirements for evidence-based instruction and assessments. • Over-reliance on educational traditions: “credit rewarded for seat time rather than demonstrated competence” and related promotional and antiquated instructional norms (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2002, p. 7). Even though these issues were identified in 2002, they are still pressing matters in the current educational system.

The assertion that every student should graduate from high school ready for college or a career (U.S. Department of Education, 2015) is echoed by many states and stakeholders (Arnold et al., 2012; College Board, 2018c). As of the fall of 2017, approximately 20.4 million students were pursuing higher education (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018), which represents roughly 64% of high school graduates (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor

Statistics, 2017). The movement toward college-readiness and success increased in priority and

urgency due to the emphasis that began under President George W. Bush when the U.S.

Department of Education initiated the original standards and accountability movement under the

Every Student Succeeds Act of 1965 (StateUniversity.com, 2018). From that point on, the several iterations of the standards and accountability movements that have been implemented through educational entities (such as ESEA, NCLB, and ESSA) have shaped the crossroads educators face today: the idea that every student should go to college and then guaranteeing they are ready to succeed at that level.

Many students end up requiring remedial courses in college as reported by educational research and colleges alike (U.S. Department of Education, 2016a; Venezia & Jaeger, 2013).

Regardless of the existence of a distinct dictionary definition of college-readiness, this lack of students being ready for college-level work is a prominently debated and researched topic in academia. For instance, the ACT (2018) has published and continues to update their “College

Readiness Standards” that includes preparation for both their test and for the rigors of college- level academics.

The Education Commission of the States published its “Blueprint for College-Readiness:

A 50-State Policy Analysis” in 2014 to further explore how states vary and compare in their college preparatory delivery. The “Blueprint” is “(d)esigned by state leaders for state leaders” featuring 10 policies with advice for how to promote college-readiness and success (Education

Commission of the States, 2014, p. 3). These policies fall under three anchors: high school policies, higher education policies, and bridge policies that work together to create a comprehensive picture of the state of college-readiness (Education Commission of the States,

2014, p. 2). The Education Commission of the States continues to develop, research, and provide 24

advice for all states to promote college-readiness (Education Commission of the States, 2014).

As of 2014, 46 states and Washington D.C. had adopted college and career ready standards and assessments; one state had partially adopted standards and assessments; two states had yet to determine which way they were going to go; and one state outright denied this adoption

(Education Commission of the States, 2014, p. 11).

College-readiness in Delaware. Delaware has adopted the Common Core State

Standards (CCSS), which have been promoted and adopted as college and career ready standards by most of the United States’ SEAs in addition to the SAT as the college and career ready assessment (Education Commission of the States, 2014). The “Blueprint for College Readiness” analyzed the CCSS and published 10 policies to promote college-readiness both at the high school and higher education levels (Education Commission of the States, 2014). Two of the policies included in the “Blueprint for College Success” are bridge policies that help the two levels (secondary and post-secondary) work together to prepare students for success in higher education (Education Commission of the States, 2014).

According to the “Blueprint for College Readiness,” by 2014 Delaware had addressed four of the 10 “Blueprint” policies to promote college-readiness (Education Commission of the

States, 2014). These include: implementation of the CCSS, using aligned standardized assessments, promoting a state-wide college- and career-readiness initiative, and reporting data on all levels of education to the Delaware DOE for analysis and public availability (Education

Commission of the States, 2014).

The governor of Delaware at the time, Jack Markell, contended the graduation rates in

Delaware led the nation in growth as of 2016 (Payne, 2017); however, by May 2017, Shana 25

Payne (2017), the Director of the Delaware Higher Education Office through the Department of

Education noted that 41% of Delaware high school graduates require remediation in English and/or math upon entering college; therefore, Payne (2017) highlighted the discrepancy that seems to exist between high graduation rates and low college-readiness that needs to be addressed by further research.

Delaware is ranked 49th in area at just over 2,000 square miles including land and water

(Drexel University, 2018). Despite its small geographical area, Delaware offers an expansive variety of post-secondary opportunities. There are five four-year colleges and universities offering diverse institutional atmospheres. First, the University of Delaware is a large university with more than 10,000 students that offers a residential campus and it is categorized as a public university (Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, 2017). Second, Delaware

State University, which is a medium university with around 5,000 students, offers a residential campus, is also categorized as a public university, and is a Historically Black College or

University (HBCU) (Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, 2017). Third,

Wilmington University is also a large university with more than 10,000 students, but it is non- residential and categorized as a private institution (Indiana University Center for Postsecondary

Research, 2017). Fourth, Wesley College is a small college with less than 3,000 students offering a residential campus; it is also categorized as a private institution (Indiana University Center for

Postsecondary Research, 2017). Fifth, Goldey-Beacom College is a small college with less than

3,000 students offering a residential campus; and it, too, is categorized as a private institution

(Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, 2017). Delaware also has a community college system, Delaware Technical and Community College, that has five strategically located 26

campuses throughout the state offering a non-residential, public college opportunity.

Additionally, Delaware includes a private fine-arts college, Delaware College of Art and Design, which is a very small with less than 500 students (Cappex, 2018). Finally, Delaware also offers access to a private, specialty law school, Widener University (Indiana University Center for

Postsecondary Research, 2017).

Delaware offers an abundance of college opportunities for its diverse population even though it is small. Because it is small, Delaware is also able to capitalize on its college-readiness initiatives such as Delaware Goes to College and College Application Month. As described earlier, Delaware reports how many students are considered college-ready through its “College

Success Report” (Delaware Department of Education, 2016). Based on the information from the

“Report,” educators of all levels and volunteers assist students and schools in promoting college- readiness through various programs such as Delaware Goes to College and College Application

Month, which are the most comprehensive state-level resources offered to support college- readiness (Delaware Department of Education, 2016).

College-readiness benchmarks. Seemingly, high school graduation rates are high and rising, but the college-readiness rates are not consistent and are being touted as low across the

United States (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2018; College Board, 2015b).

Subsequently, Delaware uses the SAT college-readiness benchmarks to determine whether students are considered to be college ready (College Board, 2018c). This does not mean students do not end up taking remedial courses, it is simply one measure the state uses to support their data collection and evaluation.

The College Board sets the college-readiness benchmarks based on extensive research with institutions of higher learning and the CCSS as well as “actual student success in entry-level college courses (College Board, 2018b, p. 1). The College Board asserts the necessity for setting the college-readiness benchmarks as informing students and parents of the students’ preparedness for college, but also to strengthen the “college culture and expectations for students” (College Board, 2018b, p. 7). These benchmark scores “represent a 75% likelihood of a student achieving at least a C grade in a first-semester, credit-bearing college course in a related subject (College Board, 2018b, p. 2):

• The math benchmark score of 530 (520 from 2011-2014) indicates the likelihood for the C grade in college-level algebra, statistics, precalculus, or calculus • The evidence-based reading and writing (ERW) benchmark score of 480 (410 from 2011-2014) indicates the likelihood for the C grade in college-level history, literature, social sciences, or writing (College Board, 2018b, p. 2). The College Board set these benchmarks to assess the CCSS, and Delaware uses the SAT to assess the implementation of the CCSS in all its curricula throughout the state.

The Standards Movement

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a “standard” is defined as

“something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality” (Standard, 2018, para. 4). Further, according to the CCSS Initiative

“educational standards” are defined as “the learning goals for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level” (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2018b, para. 1)

Similarly, the Glossary of Education Reform defines “learning standards” as “concise, written descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their 28

education” (Great Schools Partnership, 2014, para. 1). All three of these definitions address the same idea: that standards are adopted to “describe the content that schools are expected to teach and that students are expected to master (Hamilton et al., 2008, p. 10), but vary in their wording; therefore they may also vary in the interpretation based on who is accessing the definition and for what purpose. Kenichiro Miyamoto (2008) addresses this idea that the definition of

“standard” was diverse when standards began being used in education and, even though it is generally accepted as the above definitions now, “standard” remains diverse and possibly confusing. The general term most widely used to define standards and their implementation in education is standards-based reform (SBR), but other terms include systemic reform, standards- based accountability, and curriculum alignment (Hamilton et al., 2008). Hamilton et al. (2008) identify how the largely unchanged features of SBR include some for all of the following:

• Academic expectations for students…what students should know and be able to do. • Alignment of the key elements of the educational system to promote attainment of these expectations. • Assessments of student achievement to measure outcomes. • Decentralization of responsibility for decisions relating to curriculum and instruction to schools. • Support and technical assistance (from the state and district) to foster improvement of educational services. • Accountability provisions that reward or sanction schools or students on the basis of measured performance. (p. 11) The United States recognized that in order to stay competitive on a national and international scale and to continue to generate revenue, it needed to produce more educated workers. In order to insure this, they needed to standardize education (Miyamoto, 2008; 29

StateUniversity.com, 2018); therefore, “The origins of the standards movement in American education are largely economic” (StateUniversity.com, 2018, para. 1). This idea brought about a consensus among politicians that education and all the associated stakeholders needed to be held accountable through assessments—commonly referred to as the accountability model

(Miyamoto, 2008; StateUniversity.com, 2018). This model emphasized standards, measures, and accountability of the system (StateUniversity.com, 2018).

The institution of educational standards date back to the mid-1800s when written exams became more popular than oral exams upon the mainstreaming of the pencil (Miyamoto, 2008).

From the emphasis of importance and widespread implementation of written assessments, the necessity of standards grew to guide teachers and students in their curricular activities

(Miyamoto, 2008). Additionally, a stronger emphasis on grade promotion accompanied this standards movement. The grade promotion process became more streamlined as teachers and educational systems relied more on teaching the standards and ensuring students’ success on the accompanying written exams (Miyamoto, 2008). In the early 1900s students were labeled as

“retards” (or “laggards”), which meant “at that time the failure to be promoted regularly from grade to grade” (Miyamoto, 2008, p. 35). Consequently, this number came to represent “the efficiency of school systems. The fewer number of laggards, the more efficient was the school system” (Miyamoto, 2008, p. 35), thus giving birth to the emphasis on graduation numbers as an indicator of success.

The standards movement continued to grow into the mid-1900s and the emphasis remained on the accountability of a school or educational system rather than on the quality preparation of the individual students, which remains a heated debate in the United States’ 30

educational system even to this day (Miyamoto, 2008; Nelson, 2016). The standards’ movement as we know it today gained momentum in 1989 when Governors Bill Clinton and Carroll

Campbell were asked to chair an educational goals’ task force. This was followed closely by

President George Bush announcing a set of national education goals in 1990

(StateUniversity.com, 2018), which resulted in the 1991 AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy

(Miyamoto, 2008). Shortly after this, the Goals 2000 program took shape and was implemented in 1994 under President Bill Clinton (Miyamoto, 2008). Eventually, 22 states created the New

Standards Consortium whose goal was to produce a set of national standards; however, these standards did not get adopted, but they did serve as an influential example and support for individual states to create their own state standards (StateUniversity.com, 2018).

Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The Elementary and Secondary Education

Act (ESEA) was signed into law in 1965 and “marked the beginning of broad deferral involvement in the daily operations of schools” (Jennings, 2015, p. 41). The ESEA was signed into law at the same time as the Voting Rights Act, the Economic Opportunity Act, and the Civil

Rights Act, emphasizing the government’s role in fighting poverty and making a broad attempt to makes lives better everywhere (Gamson, McDermott, & Reed, 2015). Society in the 1960s came to be known as the Great Society when most people had an abundance of faith in the government as a savior (Gamson et al., 2015).

The ESEA was on the forefront of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration’s agenda; and, though the act had its critics, it was renewed every five years, usually with many amendments (Paul, 2016). The ESEA was (and has continued to be) the main source for federal aid to education (Jennings, 2015). The basic provisions of the ESEA (1965) are: 31

• Title I: Improving the academic achievement of the disadvantaged (providing funding

to schools and districts with higher levels of poverty (Paul, 2016)).

• Title II: Preparing, training, and recruiting high-quality teachers, principals, or other

school leaders.

• Title III: Language instruction for English learners and immigrant students.

• Title IV: 21st century schools (providing money and opportunities for educational

research and training (Paul, 2016)).

• Title V: Flexibility and accountability (provides grants and professional development

(Paul, 2016)).

• Title VI: Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native education.

• Title VII: Impact aid.

• Title VIII: General provisions.

These sections cover a broad range of legal and ethical aspects of education in regards to students, parents, educators, and all stakeholders from the national government’s standpoint.

Title I is the main focus of this act because it provides such a large part of educational funding based on poverty and the necessity to provide equal educational opportunities to all students

(Paul, 2016).

Congress has authorized several amendments to and reauthorizations of the ESEA since

1965 (Paul, 2016). There have been many debates about funding surrounding these amendments and reauthorizations; especially in regard to Title I (Paul, 2016); however, in 1994 the Improving

America’s Schools Act (IASA) was signed to drastically revise the ESEA in terms of

implementing more specific math and language arts standards and to give more monetary control at the local level (Paul, 2016). The most contemporary educational programs and initiatives currently being implemented are reauthorizations of the ESEA that have continued every four to five years since its initiation, with the exception of the 13-year gap between No Child Left

Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act (Gamson et al., 2015; Nelson, 2016; Paul, 2016).

No Child Left Behind. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was the reauthorization and revision of ESEA by President George W. Bush’s administration in 2002 (Paul, 2016). The major shift with this revision was the increased accountability on the part of schools, teachers, and students (Paul, 2016). Under NCLB schools must administer yearly standardized tests and meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as a sort of report card for the school, thus creating a top- down effect where administrators are pressured by the district, teachers are then pressured by administrators, and students are pressured by teachers, creating that “all-around resentment” to which Jennings (2015, p. 42) referred (Gamon et al.; Paul, 2016). NCLB also required teachers to be highly qualified based on educational backgrounds and standardized testing within their own content (Paul, 2016).

New America is an educational organization that conducts research in all facets of academia. The organization is made up of educational experts from all levels of education and is funded by interest groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (New America, 2018).

New America (2018) lists all the standardized tests for students required under NCLB. The results of these tests are also required to be published to the public:

• English language arts and math every year in grades 3-8,

• English language arts and math at least once in grades 10-12,

• Science three times total, once in each span of grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 (New

America, 2018).

Delaware students also have to take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) in 9th and

10th grades. Over the span of only eight years, students are tested 19 times.

Andrew M. I. Lee (2018), a former educational editor and attorney, and who is now a parent advisor with the Understood organization for learners with disabilities, asserts that the number of tests students take is considered a positive outcome of NCLB because the reauthorization increased inclusion for low-income students, language learners, and handicapped and learning-disabled students to take these tests. The Social Welfare History Project points out that while NCLB did help in closing the achievement gap in several categories, it also “created incentives for states to lower their standards, emphasized punishing failure over rewarding success, focused on scores instead of growth and progress…” (Paul, 2016, para. 12). If schools did not improve enough in any given year and did not meet their state’s AYP measure, the schools and districts were punished by replacing personnel and implementing more testing and content to try to remedy the situation (Lee, 2018). As the U.S. Department of Education described it during their efforts to revise ESEA (at that time the NCLB Act) for the Obama administration, NCLB was prescriptive and no longer flexible in recognizing and aiding students and teachers (U.S. Department of Education, 2015).

Common Core State Standards. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) came into existence in response to the Great Recession and states’ attempts to increase uniformity, equity,

and rigor through educational standards under the NCLB requirements (Nelson, 2016). To spur the adoption of the CCSS, Delaware was the first state to receive the Race to the Top (R2T) funding when the competition was implemented, giving monetary aid and incentives to school districts and states for their implementation and accountability assessments through the use of the CCSS (Eccel, 2012; Nelson, 2016). This set of standards was touted by the government as being the best college-ready set of standards, and in conjunction with the monetary promises, the

CCSS and associated assessments quickly became the dominant set of standards across the country (Nelson, 2016); however, as Nelson (2016) points out, the implementation of the CCSS was “incomplete and distinctly nonuniform” (p. 372).

Every Student Succeeds Act. Throughout his presidency, President Barack Obama responded to the negative impacts of NCLB, eventually revising and reauthorizing the ESEA.

This resulted in the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 (Paul,

2016; U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Under ESSA, states have regained some control over the standards and the way they are implemented. Additionally, the ESSA promotes the goal of preparing all students for college (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). The ESSA allows states to qualify for “flexibility” by establishing or adopting clear college-readiness standards and assessments and implementing school, administrator, and teacher evaluations and accountability systems (Paul, 2016, para. 13). States are no longer being held to the same requirements; they are now able to adapt based on their student populations and needs.

As of 2018, 45 states have adopted and continue to use the Common Core State

Standards while one state (Michigan) only adopted the English language arts standards, and four states (Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia) have adopted different standards (ASCD, 2018). 35

The Every Student Succeeds Act maintains the state accountability aspect of NCLB, but that accountability is no longer termed a “report card” as it was previously; rather it serves as just the state or educational accountability measure and requirement (U.S. Department of Education,

2015). Under ESSA, states choose whether to continue using the CCSS or to adopt new standards for instruction. States were given time to formulate and implement any changes in their standards, assessments, and accountability procedures, and then had their plans approved by the

United States Department of Education in 2016 for the 2017-2018 school year (U.S. Department of Education, 2016a). All state educational agencies are now fully functioning under those approved accountability plans (StateUniversity.com, 2018).

Jack Jennings (2015), is the founder of the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and former member of Congress who focused on educational aid, working extensively with the ESEA. Upon founding the CEP, he described that ESEA and educational funding programs are outdated in how they are “staying true to the way” education functioned in society when these mandates were brought about (Jennings, 2015, p. 43). While he recognizes the benefits of ESEA in all of its iterations, he criticizes the over-testing that has occurred and shaped education recently

(Jennings, 2015). He highlights the major need with the standards and testing movement spearheaded by ESEA as “imposing extensive testing on resentful teachers” (Jennings, 2015, p.

44), emphasizing that the problems do not lie just in funding or lack thereof.

It is important to note what Jennings (2015) and the U.S. Department of Education

(2016a) point out that graduation rates are at an all-time high and students are “holding their own” and are not in a failing crisis as the media would have everyone believe. Instead, the

United States’ educational “decline” is not due to a failure on the part of its own educational 36

system, but rather the rise in quality of the other nations’ systems (Jennings, 2015, p. 44), and the fact that more students are entering college than ever before (U.S. Department of Education,

2016a). All of the iterations of ESEA have been in an effort to increase the United States’ educational ranking and increase college-readiness to produce a more professionally competitive workforce. However, “Banal declarations that schools must prepare all students for college don’t actually help schools improve” (Hess, 2016, para. 1). Therefore, while graduation rates are high, that does not necessarily mean that students are college-ready just because they finished high school—even though that is the government’s emphasis (Jennings, 2015).

Standardized assessments. Standardized assessments are a major component of standards-based reforms (SBR) (Hamilton et al., 2008). In 1925, Otis Caldwell and Stuart

Courtis highlighted the argument for written assessments based on standardization made by

Horace Mann, the State Superintendent of the Public Instruction of Massachusetts in the mid-

1800s (Hamilton et al., 2008; Miyamoto, 2008). He asserted that written exams were superior to oral exams because they are: impartial, delivered directly to individual pupils, more thorough, preventative of “officious interference” by the proctor, stronger determiners of the thoroughness with which the student has been taught, free of favoritism, and are available to all (Miyamoto,

2008, p. 30).

The next major standardized test to be widely implemented was the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), which was established in the 1960s and is still used as a tool for international comparison (Hamilton et al., 2008). “The linking of consequences to test scores continued to grow throughout the 1980s” as the accountability of schools grew with the new iterations of ESEA under each president (Hamilton et al., 2008, p. 14). Many companies have 37

created standardized assessments from there that are used throughout the United States for various purposes, including assessing college-readiness. The major contenders for college- readiness standardized assessments are the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) (College Board,

2018c) and the American College Test (ACT) (ACT, 2018). Douglas S. Reed (2014), professor of Government and founder of the Program on Education, Inquiry and Just, at Georgetown

University, asserts that “the shift from inputs to outputs (in SBRs) has placed a heavy reliance on standardized assessments as the primary metric of a quality education” (p. 325).

Big Future (2017), one of the leading college exploration tools for high schooler’s, asserts, “Most four-year colleges use test scores in their admission decisions” (para. 2).

According to the research conducted by the New America’s (2018) Education Policy Program and published on their interactive website, Atlas, states use one or more of the following standardized tests to determine college-readiness: ACT (19 states or 38%), SAT (8 states or

16%), PARCC (5 states or 10%), Smarter Balanced (9 states or 18%), or a specific state- designed assessment (25 states or 50%) (Tepe, 2015). See Table 1 for a summary of the most widely used assessments. What this shows is how divergent the definitions of college-readiness really are. There is no single determiner, especially when students apply from all states to colleges that may use one, more, or even none of these tests as determiners for college-readiness.

The ACT is the most widely used college-readiness test, followed by the Smarter

Balanced test, and then the SAT (Tepe, 2015). While no state uses all three tests for accountability or to determine college-readiness, two states (Alaska and Michigan) use both the

SAT and the ACT while North Dakota uses the ACT and Smarter Balanced (Tepe, 2015). Idaho and Hawaii use the SAT and Smarter Balanced (Tepe, 2015). The only state that uses three 38

assessments (ACT, SAT, and a state assessment) as possible college-readiness determiners is

Alaska (Tepe, 2015).

Table 1

Summary of Accountability Assessments

Assessment Name Content Assessed Grades Assessed and Frequency ACT (ACT, 2018) • English (reading and writing) 11th grade yearly • Mathematics 12th grade voluntarily • Science • Social studies NAEP (National • Mathematics 4th, 8th, and 12th grades every two Center for Education • Reading years by random samples of Statistics, 2012) • Science schools and students • History and arts occasionally PARCC (Partnership • English 3rd-12th grades yearly for Assessment of • Literacy Readiness for College • Mathematics and Careers, 2018) SAT (College Board, • Mathematics 11th grade yearly 2018c) • Reading 12th grade voluntarily • Writing Smarter Balanced • Mathematics 3rd-8th grades and 11th grade (Smarter Balanced • Reading Assessment • Speaking Consortium, 2018) • Writing

Many colleges set benchmarks for these major tests to consider their applicants’ college- readiness (Tepe, 2015); however, whether the state uses one test over another, the definition being set or used by a college can (and does) vary greatly from school to school—not to mention state to state. If a student in one state is deemed college ready by his or her high school and locally aligned college(s), he or she may be deemed less than ready by another college or state.

Thus, the tests that exist to attempt to standardize the definition of college-readiness actually serve to further diversify it.

The definitions of college-readiness may differ by state, but according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, 73% of students attend college in their home state, which usually aligns to whatever standardized test their high school used as their college-readiness assessment

(O’Shaughnessy, 2011). Therefore, while there may be a plethora of definitions for college- readiness, this statistic shows that it seems to come down to a state-level definition agreed upon with the state colleges for measuring readiness of a state’s own high schools in preparing their own students for their own state colleges (O’Shaughnessy, 2011). This does not take into account variations for private schools (both secondary and post-secondary) that can function on a completely different level when it comes to standards and assessments (O’Shaughnessy, 2011).

Therefore, what the search for a definition of college-readiness has led to is the fact that a definition is complicated based on so many factors including geography, school type, and assessment type just within one state let alone between states.

Delaware standardized assessments. In addition to giving students the option to take either the SAT or ACT as 11th graders, the State of Delaware established its own standardized tests in accordance with the ESEA reauthorizations as the law required. The high-stakes accountability testing in Delaware high schools began under NCLB with the Delaware State

Testing Program (DSTP) (Time4Learning, 2018). The DSTP was used from 2002 to 2012 when it was replaced by the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System (DCAS) (Bright Education

Services & Testing, 2018). Next, Delaware adopted the CCSS in line with the ESSA reauthorization of ESEA in 2015 and administered the Smarter Balanced Assessment 40

Consortium (SBAC) in the 2014 testing season (DelExcels, 2018). The SBAC was only used in

Delaware high schools for one testing season when the state decided to adopt the School-Day

SAT as its high school accountability test (Delaware Department of Education, 2017b).

However, the School-Day SAT was being administered before 2016.

Delaware School-Day SAT. Delaware began using the School-Day SAT in 2011

(Delaware Department of Education, 2017b; May, 2016). In 2016 the College Board launched the redesigned SAT that was in line with the CCSS (Delaware Department of Education, 2017b).

By aligning the SAT with the CCSS, the SAT increased its appeal to states trying to implement relevant college-ready assessments.

The School-Day SAT is mandatory for all 11th graders in the state of Delaware (May,

2016); in a good-faith effort, the DOE made it free of charge thanks to $119 million in R2T funding (Adams, 2011; May, 2011). In 2011, then-Secretary Lillian M. Lowery asserted that by offering the School-Day SAT, the state was effectively improving college-readiness (May,

2011). Lowery added that this form of testing created a college-going-culture, still emphasized throughout the state to this day (College Board, 2015a; May, 2011). Not only is part of the intent of the School Day SAT to increase college-readiness, but the state also hopes to eliminate traditional barriers to testing by providing it in school, forgoing transportation and scheduling problems (May, 2012). As Delaware Secretary of Education Steven Godowsky explained, the adoption of the SAT as the main high school accountability test was due in part to offering students a gauge for their college-readiness; however, another major reason was to cut down on the amount of time students were spending on standardized tests rather than on quality

instruction and learning (May, 2016). The Delaware Secretary of Education has even referred to the SAT specifically as the “college-readiness exam” (May, 2012, para. 2).

Summary

Standardized testing and academic standards have been through many iterations since the mid-1800s (Miyamoto, 2008). These standards and their assessments shifted with the political offices and educational environs over the years (Gamson et al., 2015). One factor that has remained constant is the need for academic standards in public school systems, and that student achievement in regard to these standards must be assessed in order to hold the school systems and states accountable (ASCD, 2018; Eccel, 2012; Gamson et al., 2015; Hamilton et al., 2008;

Nelson, 2016). Another constant is that there has been an increasing emphasis on college- readiness (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2002; U.S. Department of

Education, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017).

Delaware emphasizes going to college immediately upon graduating from high school

(Delaware Goes to College, 2018). Through the Common Core State Standards, the School-Day

SAT, and school mission statements, Delaware stresses (and even goes so far as to promise) college-readiness for all students graduating from Delaware high schools (Delaware Goes to

College, 2018). On his education policy webpage, Governor John Carney published that one of his stances is to ensure “that all students graduate high school college ready” (Friends for John

Carney, 2018, p. 5); however,

The current policy of inserting a little extra help for students into an inequitable system of schooling has not brought about the quality of education we need. The other current

federal strategy of demanding extensive testing of students has not resulted in a broad increase in student achievement. (Jennings, 2015, p. 45-46) It is essential to analyze the data in Delaware to determine how the number of students meeting the benchmark on the School-Day SAT relates to the graduation rates from the

Delaware public high schools to better understand the state’s and the individual school’s achievement of their college-readiness goals.

Chapter III

Methodology

This quantitative research study analyzed ex post facto data from the School-Day SAT and reported graduation rates of the Delaware public high schools. The data covered the graduating classes of 2012 through 2016 (School-Day SAT years of 2011 through 2015). The researcher intended to determine the relationship that exists between the data sets for the entire state, but also broken down into the following categories: traditional public high schools in each county (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex), public high schools with charters and specialty-curricula, and public vocational and technical high schools.

Geoffrey Mills of Southern Oregon University and L.R. Gay of Florida International University

(2016) asserted that “Underlying quantitative research methods is the philosophical belief or assumption that we inhabit a relatively stable, uniform, and coherent world that we can measure, understand, and generalize about” (p. 7). Therefore, this quantitative research study analyzed ex post facto data to determine if a relationship existed between high school graduation rates and students’ meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the SAT. The processes used in this study can be replicated for other organizations and states, supporting the belief of Mills and Gay (2016).

Research Design

Mills and Gay (2016) describe the continuum of research purposes: at one end there is

“basic research,” intended to develop or refine theories, and at the other end is “applied research,” intended to apply or test theories (p. 16). Based on these definitions, this study used basic research for the purpose of developing a theory about the relationship between two variables. Additionally, the data collected were retrospective—in that they “examine data that 44

already exist” (Lammers & Badia, 2004, p. 15-3). Further, Lammers and Badia (2004) described the importance of basic research because it “provides the foundation (database) for the resolution of present and future problems, for the development of technology, and for a better understanding of all aspects of the world in which we live” (p. 3-21).

This study used a quantitative research approach to investigate a relationship between variables (Mills & Gay, 2016; Ritchey, 2008). Specifically, it used a correlational relationship study, which “involves collecting data or searching out records of a specified population and ascertaining the relationships among the variables of interest” (Lammers & Badia, 2004, p. 15-

3). It was different from experimental research in that the samples were not random and the variables were not manipulated (Lammers & Badia, 2004; Ritchey, 2008). In this study, the variables of interest were the percentages of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT and the graduation rates at Delaware public high schools. This study determined what relationship exists between the variables over a five-year period for the classes of 2012 through 2016 using ex post facto data. Ex post facto data are those collected “after the fact” (Lammers & Badia, 2004, p. 15-16).

Once the data and results were analyzed and the nature of a relationship was established, educational specialists were able to better understand the relationship between these variables to make informed decisions for instruction and assessment.

Participants/Sampling Strategy

The target population, to which the results may be generalizable according to Mills and

Gay (2016), was high school graduates. This study analyzed data that informed the target population about their possible college-readiness standards. Subsequently, the target population 45

included students and high schools because the schools also needed to understand how they were setting and meeting attainable college-readiness goals.

The “accessible population” (Mills & Gay, 2016, p. 138) for this study was Delaware public high schools. This study analyzed data from all public high schools in Delaware, which were categorized as follows:

• Traditional public high schools in New Castle County. These high schools were those with

public funding within the geographical boundaries of New Castle County, Delaware. These

were the schools that any students living within their designated, geographical regions, or

whom requested and were approved for school choice, may attend for free, which included:

Alexis A. DuPont High School, Appoquinimink High School, Brandywine High School,

Christiana High School, Concord High School, Glasgow High School, John Dickinson High

School, Middletown High School, Mt. Pleasant High School, Newark High School, Thomas

McKean High School, and William Penn High School.

• Traditional public high schools in Kent County. These high schools were those with public

funding within the geographical boundaries of Kent County, Delaware. These were the

schools that any students living within their designated, geographical regions or whom

requested and were approved for school choice, may attend for free, which included: Caesar

Rodney High School, Dover High School, Lake Forest High School, Milford High School,

and Smyrna High School.

• Traditional public high schools in Sussex County. These high schools were those with public

funding within the geographical boundaries of Sussex County, Delaware. These were the

schools that any students living within their designated, geographical regions or whom

requested and were approved for school choice, may attend for free, which included: Cape

Henlopen High School, Delmar High School, Indian River High School, Laurel High School,

Seaford Senior High School, Sussex Central High School, and Woodbridge High School.

• Public vocational and technical high schools. These high schools were those throughout the

state that specifically taught a vocational and technical curriculum and that were publicly

funded from county monies. These schools used a lottery system to admit students from

across the county in which they were located. There were six of these high schools

throughout Delaware with a minimum of one per county, which included: Delcastle

Technical High School, Howard High School of Technology, Paul M. Hodgson Vocational

Technical High School, Polytech High School, St. Georges Technical High School, and

Sussex Technical High School.

• Public charter and special-curriculum high schools. These high schools had ratified charters

that established them as publicly funded schools that taught target curricula. Additionally, in

this category were two magnet high schools that functioned similarly to the charter schools,

but that were associated with a specific school district. These schools used a lottery system to

admit students from across the state, which included: Cab Calloway School for the Arts,

Charter School of Wilmington, Conrad School of Science, and the Delaware Military

Academy.

The reason these high schools were selected was because they represented a diverse set of public school environments and students using the same requirement to complete the School-Day SAT.

The following schools were excluded from this study because they existed or only administered the School-Day SAT either not at all or for only one or two of the data’s five-year range: Campus Community School, Kent County Alternative School, Kent County Community

School, School for the Deaf, Delaware Design-Lab High School, MOT Charter High School,

Delmar Secondary ILC, Moyer Academy, Pyle Academy, Positive Outcomes Charter School,

The Central School, Seaford ILC, George Washington Carver Academy, First State School,

Sussex Consortium, The Wallin School, and the Charlton School. James H Groves Adult High

School and Networks School for Employability Skills were excluded because they are non- traditional high schools for any category. Positive Outcomes Charter School was also excluded due to its non-traditional status of rehabilitation education based on the designated labels.

Private schools in Delaware were also excluded from this study because they were neither required to administer the School-Day SAT nor required to report their standardized test scores. It is in the schools’ best interests to report any and all data to the state for various memberships and accreditations, but they were not required.

Variables. The first variable in this study was the publicly reported graduation rates for classes 2012 through 2016. The second variable for this study was the publicly reported School-

Day SAT scores for all the Delaware public high schools for testing years 2011 through 2015.

For example, the scores from the 2011 School-Day SAT were coordinated with the 2012 graduation rates.

Sample. The samples were selected by purposive (or judgmental) sampling. Mills and

Gay (2016) define purposive sampling as “selecting a sample that is believed to be representative of a given population” (p. 149). They further state that “the researcher deliberately identifies 48

criteria for selecting the sample” (Mills & Gay, 2016, p. 149), which was how the samples in this study were identified. The inclusion criteria for sample selection in this study was that the school must be a public high school in Delaware and have administered the state-mandated School-Day

SAT during at least four or all testing years of 2011 through 2016. The sample represented public high schools anywhere that offered the School-Day SAT by using all the public high schools in Delaware.

Instrumentation & Data Collection

Mills and Gay (2016) define an instrument as “a tool used to collect data” (p. 158). In this study, two instruments were used to collect the data. The main collection instrument used was the Delaware DOE website where the data for both graduation rates and School-Day SAT scores were reported. The secondary tool used was the School-Day SAT, which provided the scores necessary for this study. All variables were publicly reported to and by the DDOE and available to be downloaded for analysis.

Data Analysis Procedures

The collected data were entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This study used a correlational analysis to determine a correlation coefficient, which is a “numerical index that reflects the relationship between two variables” (Salkind, 2014, p. 81). This study used a Pearson r correlational coefficient to determine the relationship between meeting the college-readiness benchmark on the SAT and graduation rate for the state as a whole and also for the five groups in comparison to one another. The Pearson r correlation coefficient was chosen to use because it

“takes into account every score in both distributions; it is also the most stable measure of correlation” (Mills & Gay, 2016, p. 496). 49

The null hypothesis (H0) for this study was that there would be no relationship between the average number of students meeting the college-readiness benchmark on the School-Day

SAT (µSAT) and the average graduation rate from Delaware public high schools (µGRAD): H0: µSAT ≠

µGRAD. The groups were also compared for annual trends after the Pearson r was completed.

Limitations

Sampling. Mills and Gay (2016) address the main drawback for purposive sampling, which “is the potential for inaccuracy in the researcher’s criteria and resulting sample selections”

(p. 149); however, this drawback did not apply to this study because the sample used represented almost the entire state of Delaware. Conversely, the generalizability of this study could be questioned based on the small sample, but by including an entire state, the process may be replicated in other states to validate the outcomes.

This study did not take into account dual enrollment or Academic Challenge students.

The scores in the data set were representative of every student identified as an 11th-grade student based on earned credits at the time of the School-Day SAT, regardless of their level of English or math. However, there was the possibility of the argument that dual enrollment students—those who take credit-bearing college courses while still in high school (by either attending classes at the college or at their own high school that has partnered with a local college) (Wilmington

University, 2018)—had proven college ready, but for the purpose of this study, the results were only concerned with the overall performance of these and all public school students on the

School-Day SAT. The dual enrollment students were not required to take the SAT prior to enrolling in dual enrollment courses; however, these students did take the School-Day SAT with the other traditional students, so this may have skewed the data (Wilmington University, 2018). 50

Similarly, Sussex County, Delaware offers an academically advanced opportunity called

Academic Challenge for students to take college-level classes at Delaware Technical Community

College in Georgetown, Delaware. However, these classes are not credit-bearing and are taken only with other high-school students in place of a math or English class at the home school

(Delaware Technical Community College, 2018a). Again, for the purpose of this study, the results were only concerned with the overall performance of these and all public school students on the School-Day SAT.

Variables. The School-Day SAT is currently the only state-mandated standardized test used for accountability for Delaware public high schools. It became the sole assessment for accountability in 2016 (Delaware Department of Education, 2018). The School-Day SAT was a mandatory test beginning in 2011, but the DSTP was administered as Delaware’s accountability assessment from 2011-2014 and then the SBAC was administered as Delaware State’s accountability assessment in 2015 (Delaware Department of Education, 2018). However, the data in this study were valid because the School-Day SAT has been mandated since 2011 and has been administered the same way every year; therefore, the student experience remained the same regardless of any other assessments.

College-Readiness. There are many factors that contribute to a student being considered college-ready such as participating in dual enrollment, taking rigorous high school courses such as Advanced Placement and honors, and socio-economic-status; however, this study was strictly concerned with the reported SAT scores and graduation rates.

Ethical Issues

The American Education Research Association has provided five principles to support the code of ethics in conjunction with the passing of the National Research Act of 1974, which guides researchers to follow ethical practices when designing and conducting research:

• “Professional Competence

• Integrity

• Professional, Scientific, and Scholarly Responsibility

• Respect for People’s Rights, Dignity, and Diversity and

• Social Responsibility” (Mills & Gay, 2016, p. 18-19).

This study posed no ethical threat to anyone or anything. All data were publicly available and no human names were used in reference to specific datum. This study was approved by the

Human Subjects Review Committee of Wilmington University on March 26, 2018 (see

Appendix A).

Chapter IV

Results and Analysis

Overview of the Study

Delaware public high schools have administered the School-Day SAT every year since

2011 as the standardized accountability test under ESSA. The relationship between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the SAT and the reported graduation rates for each school was unknown until this study. The literature review detailed how Delaware came to use the School-Day SAT and why researching a relationship, if any, is important to academia.

The purpose of this quantitative, bivariate study was to analyze the relationship between the percentage of students who met the college-readiness benchmarks for math and ERW on the

School-Day SAT from 2011-2015 and the graduation rates of those classes from 2012-2016. The ex post facto data were listed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and then a Pearson r correlation coefficient was run to determine the relationship between the two variables.

This study was guided by one primary and two secondary research questions. The primary research question guiding this study was: what is the relationship between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT as set by the College Board and the graduation rates for Delaware public high schools as reported by the Delaware

Department of Education? The secondary questions were: 1. what are the trends in meeting the

SAT college-readiness benchmarks across the identified groupings of Delaware public high schools? and 2. what are the trends in the graduation rates across the identified groupings of

Delaware public high schools?

The null hypothesis (H0) for this study was that there would be no relationship between the average number of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day

SAT (µSAT) and the average graduation rates from Delaware public high schools (µGRAD): H0: µSAT

≠ µGRAD. The null hypothesis was been rejected since a moderate, positive correlation was identified.

Description of Variables

The first variable in this study was the School-Day SAT scores for Delaware public high schools. The Delaware DOE requires each public school to report their School-Day SAT scores to the state DOE. The DOE then creates a report with both the number and the percentage of students who met the college-readiness benchmarks for the math and ERW sections as set by the

SAT. The math benchmark score was 520 and the ERW benchmark score was 410 from 2011 through 2014 when the test was scored out of 2400 (College Board, 2018b, p. 2). Since 2014 when the test resumed the composite score of 1600, the math benchmark is 530 and the ERW benchmark is 480 (College Board, 2018b, p. 2). These data were all publicly available on the

Delaware DOE website and the SAT website.

The second variable in this study was the publicly reported graduation rates (percentages) as mandatorily reported by each public school to the Delaware DOE. These data were also published by the DOE on their website in a report.

The Results

Pearson r. What is the relationship between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT as set by the College Board and the graduation rates for

Delaware public high schools as reported by the Delaware Department of Education? To answer 54

this question, the data for both variables were entered into an Excel spreadsheet as can be seen in

Appendix B. A Pearson r was run where n=170 for both SAT scores meeting the college- readiness benchmark and the graduation rates. Table 2 describes the strength of relationships between two variables that may be determined by the Pearson r-value (Salkind, 2014, p. 92).

Table 2

Correlation General Interpretation

Size of the Correlation Coefficient General Interpretation

.8 to 1.0 Very strong relationship

.6 to .8 Strong relationship

.4 to .6 Moderate relationship

.2 to .4 Weak relationship

.0 to .2 Weak or no relationship

The result was a moderate, positive correlation between the students meeting the SAT benchmarks and the graduation rates over the five-year period of the mandatory School-Day

SAT (Salkind, 2014, p. 92). This was determined by the r-value of +0.47. Table 3 breaks down the correlations by year that lead to the overall r-value of +0.47. The overall state trend is then illustrated in Figure 1, which shows a slight increase over time.

Table 3

Correlation for Whole State by Graduation Year

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Pearson r +0.46 +0.48 +0.46 +0.50 +0.53 n 33* 34 34 34 34

*Concord High School did not have data for the class of 2012.

1 0.9 0.8 0.7

r 0.6 0.5

Pearson Pearson 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Graduating Class Year

Figure 1. Correlation between meeting the benchmark and graduation rates over time.

The coefficient of determination (r2) is 0.22, or 22%, which means that 22% of the variance of SAT scores meeting the college-readiness benchmark can be explained by the variance of the graduation rates (Salkind, 2014, p. 93). This also means that the coefficient of alienation is 78%, which means 78% of the variance of the SAT scores meeting the college- readiness benchmark cannot be explained by the variance of the graduation rate. 56

Grouping trends with Pearson r. Table 4 shows the r-value for each of the groupings by graduating class and then over the five-year period.

Table 4

Correlation of the School-Day SAT and Graduation Rates for each Graduating Class by Group

Group Class of Class of Class of Class of Class of All Classes

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

New Castle Co. +0.66 +0.78 +0.57 +0.67 +0.69 +0.65

Kent Co. +0.12 +0.46 +0.51 +0.01 +0.40 +0.01

Sussex Co. +0.69 +0.68 +0.73 +0.71 +0.93 +0.64

Charter/Spec. +1.00 +0.02 +0.90 -0.06 -0.17 +0.26

Vo-Tech +0.21 +0.76 +0.53 +0.63 +0.48 +0.52

Table 4 shows the r-value for the entire state by graduating class year and indicates a moderate, positive correlation between the variables. When the data are further disaggregated in Table 4, they show a high degree of variability between the groups with New Castle County and Sussex

County public high schools having a strong positive correlation between 0.6 to 0.8 (Salkind,

2014, p. 92), while Kent County has no correlation over the same period of time.

Figure 2 illustrates that performance on the SAT is a more consistent indicator of graduation rate and consequently college-readiness in three of the five groups: New Castle

County, Sussex County, and the vocational-technical high schools, than in the other two groups:

Kent County and charter and specialty-curriculum high schools. The only group to produce a

negative correlation was the charter and specialty-curriculum schools, which did so for two consecutive years despite leading in the average graduation rate over time (see Table 8).

1 0.8 0.6 0.4

0.2 Pearson Pearson r 0 -0.2 Class of Class of Class of Class of Class of All 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Classes New Castle Co. Kent Co. Sussex Co. Charter Vo-Tech

Figure 2. Correlation for each graduating class by group.

Annual trends SAT. What are the trends in meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks across the identified groupings of Delaware public high schools? Table 5 shows that for the state of Delaware public schools, the average percentage of the students meeting the benchmark on the School-Day SAT over the five year period of 2011-2015 was 22.26.

Table 5

Average Percentage Meeting SAT Benchmarks for Delaware

Class of 2012 Class of 2013 Class of 2014 Class of 2015 Class of 2016 All Classes

22.23 22.35 22.87 23.02 20.82 22.26

Even as each year’s data were disaggregated, the number still remained consistent in its trend. The percentage rose slightly on the 2014 test (class of 2015), and then dipped below the 58

average on the 2015 test (class of 2016), but overall remained relatively steady in the percentage of each graduating class meeting the college-readiness benchmark on the SAT each year.

Further disaggregating the data, Table 6 breaks down the percentage of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks by the identified groupings.

Table 6

Average Percentage Meeting SAT Benchmarks by Group

Class of Class of Class of Class of Class of All

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Classes

New Castle Co. 20.01 20.38 21.93 21.84 17.85 20.41

Kent Co. 19.31 18.59 17.26 16.72 16.56 17.69

Sussex Co. 14.65 14.76 15.94 14.98 14.28 14.92

Charter 56.61 57.87 57.61 60.88 58.74 58.34

Vo-Tech 14.65 14.60 14.36 14.75 12.62 14.20

The charter and specialty-curriculum schools consistently had a higher percentage of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the SAT. One reason for this may be their application and selection process for students in that these schools can require certain criteria for admission that may lead to a higher-caliber student. However, there are a myriad of other reasons that may also lead to higher and lower percentages in any given year.

In the other direction, the rest of the groupings were relatively in line with one another for the percentages of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the SAT. New

Castle County high schools led the groupings with an average of 20.41% of students meeting the

college-readiness benchmarks, followed by Kent County, Sussex County, and the vocational- technical high schools respectively. These data are not an assessment on the quality of the education in any given grouping, but are simply showing a trend in the results of the School-Day

SAT as a determiner of college-readiness.

Annual trends graduation rates. What are the trends in the graduation rates across the identified groupings of Delaware public high schools? Table 7 shows that for the state of

Delaware public schools, the average graduation rate over the five-year period of 2012-2016 was

85.77%.

Table 7

Average Graduation Rate for Delaware by Graduation Year

Class of 2012 Class of 2013 Class of 2014 Class of 2015 Class of 2016 All Classes

83.35 83.25 87.73 87.47 86.96 85.77

Table 7 shows how the average graduation rate for the state of Delaware public high schools rose over the five-year period, though it took a slight dip in 2016. Once the data were disaggregated by the groupings for each year, it became clear that the charter and specialty- curriculum high schools as well as the vocational and technical high schools had higher graduation rates (see Table 8).

Table 8

Average Graduation Rate by Group

Class of Class of Class of Class of Class of All Classes

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

New Castle Co. 77.81 77.93 84.22 81.88 81.13 80.64

Kent Co. 77.44 80.24 84.56 85.60 86.04 82.78

Sussex Co. 79.56 78.47 84.81 84.87 82.37 82.02

Charter 96.55 95.33 96.00 98.90 99.75 97.31

Vo-Tech 94.07 93.93 95.30 95.60 96.25 95.03

The traditional public schools in the three county groupings were also more in line with one another in the 80% range. Similar to meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks, there are a plethora of influences acting upon the graduation rates from year to year and within the groupings. Especially for the charter and specialty-curriculum schools and the vocational and technical high schools whose graduation rates were more than 10% higher than the traditional public schools in each county, other factors may have impacted student success such as smaller class sizes, more specialized faculty, and specific foci for pathways leading to graduation. The positive aspect of these data was the increase (albeit incremental) over time in the graduation rates, further attesting to consistency in the Delaware education system (see Figure 3).

89 88 87 86 85 84

Graduation Rates Graduation 83 82 81 Class of Class of Class of Class of Class of 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Figure 3. Average graduation rates over time.

Summary

These data were collected and analyzed through the Pearson r correlation coefficient formula in Microsoft Excel to answer the primary research question seeking the nature of the relationship between meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks for math and ERW on the

School-Day SAT and graduation rates for Delaware public high schools over a five-year period from testing years 2011-2015 (graduating classes of 2012-2016). The results indicated a moderate, positive correlation with an overall r-value of +0.47. The coefficient of determination

(r2) was 0.22, or 22%, which means that 22% of the variance of SAT scores meeting the college- readiness benchmark can be explained by the variance of the graduation rates. Likewise, the coefficient of alienation was 78%, which means 78% of the variance of the SAT scores meeting the college-readiness benchmark cannot be explained by the variance of the graduation rate.

This study further disaggregated the data and analyzed the trends in meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks and graduation rates by groupings (traditional public high schools in each county, charter and specialty-curriculum high schools, and vocational and technical high schools), which supported the moderate, positive correlation between the variables. Furthermore, the data also supported the idea of consistency among the groupings and the Delaware state education system as a whole.

Chapter V

Summary and Conclusion

Introduction

Defining and assessing college-readiness is a highly debated topic amongst academicians at both the secondary and the post-secondary levels. Many of the United States came together in

2009 to implement the Common Core State Standards to bridge the gap of knowledge between states and to better prepare students for college success (Common Core State Standards

Initiative, 2018a). This implementation further supported the integration of standards-based curriculum and assessments begun in the 1800s with the invention of the pencil and pressure on schools to produce evidentiary proof of assessments of students for accountability (Miyamoto,

2008). Today Delaware implements the CCSS to guide its curriculum and administers the

School-Day SAT test to assess students for school accountability and students’ college-readiness based on the benchmarks set by the SAT. Delaware’s Governor Carney stated, “All students will graduate college ready” (Friends of John Carney, 2018, p. 5) inspiring this study to discover the nature of the relationship between students meeting the School-Day SAT college-readiness benchmarks and graduation rates for testing years 2011-2015 (graduation years 2012-2016).

Summary and Discussion

The primary research question was: what is the relationship between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT as set by the College Board and the graduation rates for Delaware public high schools as reported by the Delaware Department of

Education? The null hypothesis was that there would be no relationship between the average

number of students meeting the college-readiness benchmark on the School-Day SAT (µSAT) and 64

the average graduation rate from Delaware public high schools (µGRAD): H0: µSAT ≠ µGRAD. A

Pearson r test returned an r-value of +0.47 was found, which rejected the null hypothesis and confirmed a moderate, positive correlation between the two variables. The coefficient of determination (r2) was 0.22, or 22%, which means that 22% of the variance of SAT scores meeting the college-readiness benchmark can be explained by the variance of the graduation rates (Salkind, 2014, p. 93). Conversely, the coefficient of alienation was 78%, which means

78% of the variance of the SAT scores meeting the college-readiness benchmark cannot be explained by the variance of the graduation rate. The primary research question was answered, but the data only confirmed an association, not causation (Salkind, 2014). Therefore, the data indicate that in some instances, when more students meet the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT, there may also be a higher graduation rate, but there are a myriad of other factors that could also contribute to this statement and the influence on either variable such as specific demographics like academic level, race, gender, and so many more.

The two secondary research questions were 1. what are the trends in meeting the SAT college-readiness benchmarks across the identified groupings of Delaware public high schools? and 2. what are the trends in the graduation rates across the identified groupings of Delaware public high schools? These were both answered through disaggregating the data into tables and analyzing the averages across time for each grouping and for the state as a whole. Overall, the data supported that Delaware’s education system has been consistent in its implementation of academics and graduation requirements. The charter and specialty-curriculum high schools were higher in their rates of meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT and

graduation rates, but the three counties and the vocational and technical high schools were similar in their rates and not far below the charter and specialty-curriculum schools.

Table 9 offers a condensed summary of the research questions and conclusions.

Table 9

Research Questions and Conclusions

Question Conclusion Primary: What is the relationship between • Pearson r correlation coefficient students meeting the college-readiness • r = +0.47 benchmarks on the School-Day SAT and the • moderate, positive correlation graduation rates for Delaware public high schools? Secondary: What are the trends in meeting the • Average of groups over five years = SAT college-readiness benchmarks across the 22.26% identified groupings of Delaware public high • Charter and specialty-curriculum were schools? highest consistently • Descending rank: Charters, New Castle County, Kent County, Sussex County, Vo-Techs • Indicates consistency in administration of academics Secondary: What are the trends in the • Average of groups over five years = graduation rates across the identified groupings 85.77% of Delaware public high schools? • Charters and specialty-curriculum as well as vocational and technical schools were higher by 10% or more • Traditional schools in the three counties were consistent with one another • Indicates consistency in expectations and requirements

Limitations of the Study

One limitation to this study was the sample size once the data were disaggregated. There were only five years’ worth of data and only 34 high schools, which was an appropriate sample size to analyze the results for the entire state of Delaware; however, when the data were 66

disaggregated, one group (charter and specialty-curriculum schools) only had four schools, and

Kent County only had five schools. Therefore, since this was the data available and that worked toward answering the primary research question, it was necessary to analyze it along with the rest of the groupings even with a small sample size. More charter schools have also begun administering the School-Day SAT in Delaware since these data were collected, so over the next several years, this grouping should grow in sample size.

Another limitation to this study is that it did not include individual student scores. This data would help a researcher look more in-depth into the relationship and trends by school, grouping, and the state as a whole for each variable. Part of why this study did not solicit these individual scores was to protect schools’ and students’ information. This study was not designed to assess any person or school individually. Additionally, for ease of data collection, all these data were publicly available, minimizing the impact of data collection on a number of agencies.

Again, over the next several years, even more data will be available to replicate this study with a larger sample.

Implications and Recommendations

For practice. The data yielded a moderate, positive correlation between the percentage of students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks and graduation rates for Delaware public high schools. The implication is that in some instances, when one variable rises, the other may also rise. What this means for practice is that these variables should be emphasized to increase the positive results. The Delaware Department of Education could increase the analysis of the

School-Day SAT data to better inform best practices. Additionally, the Delaware DOE could also make an SAT preparatory course a graduation requirement, making it mandatory for every 67

public school student to take and pass the class. A third recommendation for the Delaware DOE is to offer more individualized professional development opportunities to assist teachers in the incorporation of SAT skills and practice into their curricula.

For research. Based on this study, there is an established positive correlation between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the School-Day SAT and graduation rates from Delaware public high schools; however, it can be seen in the raw data the large difference between the percentage of students graduating—which according to Governor Carney (Friends of John Carney, 2018) also indicates being college ready—and the percentage of students actually achieving the college-readiness benchmark as identified by the SAT. This gap needs to be further researched using more concise data including individual student scores and raw numbers instead of percentages. Additionally, more demographics can be identified and disaggregated to help researchers better understand the factors that may be influencing the variables.

The results of this study show that there is a correlation between the two variables, but possible causation cannot be confirmed. A causation study is another route that researchers should consider. Furthermore, a longitudinal study could be conducted to identify students who do and do not meet the college-readiness benchmarks and follow them through graduation and into college or career to determine success. This type of study would also allow a researcher to begin analyzing the amount of predictability for which the SAT could account. A survey would be a next step based on this study that could further identify factors impacting the variables of college-readiness and graduation rates.

Conclusion

This study sought to contribute to educational theory and practice through entering the academic conversation regarding the implementation of standards-based curriculum, standardized assessments, and graduation rates through a literature review and by establishing the research question to specifically analyze the data from the state of Delaware. The researcher determined the moderate, positive correlation between students meeting the college-readiness benchmarks on the math and ERW sections of the School-Day SAT and graduation rates for public high schools in the state of Delaware. Causality is unable to be determined by this study, leaving more research opportunities to future educational researchers.

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Appendix A

Human Subjects Review Committee Packet

Appendix B

Raw Data

Category School SAT Grad SAT Avg. Grad Rate Year Year Meet Bench New Castle Appoquinimink HS 2011 2012 28.13 92.2 Public 2012 2013 29.68 90.5 2013 2014 32.05 94.7 2014 2015 28.01 94.2 2015 2016 27.87 89.8 Middletown HS 2011 2012 30.5 88.7 2012 2013 32.18 81.7 2013 2014 28.47 93.9 2014 2015 32.09 92.1 2015 2016 25.42 91.8 Brandywine HS 2011 2012 24.54 82.6 2012 2013 22.73 80.3 2013 2014 21.88 82.6 2014 2015 22.17 83 2015 2016 17.59 83.6 Mt Pleasant HS 2011 2012 29.73 84.4 2012 2013 29.45 81.5 2013 2014 33.56 79 2014 2015 41.26 87.7 2015 2016 31.75 94.4 Concord HS 2012 2013 32.32 90.7 2013 2014 34.22 89 2014 2015 33.19 85.6 2015 2016 27.13 89.9 Christiana HS 2011 2012 12.06 66.2 2012 2013 8.21 68.3 2013 2014 7.43 75.9 2014 2015 7.91 67.3 2015 2016 5.81 65 Glasgow HS 2011 2012 10.31 73.9 2012 2013 10.14 66.6

2013 2014 5.64 76.6 2014 2015 9.87 73.6 2015 2016 10.22 72 Newark HS 2011 2012 29.93 71.2 2012 2013 27.5 75.8 2013 2014 29.58 80.2 2014 2015 29.97 75.6 2015 2016 24.71 71.4 William Penn HS 2011 2012 12.01 74.2 2012 2013 7.99 74.5 2013 2014 11.7 84.2 2014 2015 6.8 80.4 2015 2016 6.7 73.9 Alexis I. duPont HS 2011 2012 25.83 85.3 2012 2013 26.58 83.8 2013 2014 31.25 88.3 2014 2015 26.2 87 2015 2016 24.38 83.7 John Dickinson HS 2011 2012 10.84 59.6 2012 2013 9.57 62.5 2013 2014 16.91 81 2014 2015 16.67 75.9 2015 2016 9.85 73.8 Thomas McKean HS 2011 2012 6.21 77.6 2012 2013 8.16 79 2013 2014 10.42 85.2 2014 2015 7.97 80.2 2015 2016 2.79 84.2 Kent County Caesar Rodney HS 2011 2012 26.8 77.4 Public 2012 2013 25.95 82 2013 2014 24.39 90.3 2014 2015 25.23 86.6 2015 2016 24.02 86.5 Dover HS 2011 2012 21.55 74.1 2012 2013 17.85 80.3 2013 2014 13.89 86.7 2014 2015 11.29 87.4 2015 2016 9.35 83.8 89

Lake Forest HS 2011 2012 12.26 74.4 2012 2013 15.85 77.6 2013 2014 16.22 82.5 2014 2015 14.8 82.6 2015 2016 15.49 82.3 Milford Senior HS 2011 2012 16.54 79.5 2012 2013 16.93 83.6 2013 2014 15.48 85.7 2014 2015 18.72 84.9 2015 2016 20.84 89 Smyrna HS 2011 2012 19.42 81.8 2012 2013 16.38 77.7 2013 2014 16.34 77.6 2014 2015 13.58 86.5 2015 2016 13.12 88.6 Sussex County Cape Henlopen HS 2011 2012 25.76 82.1 Public 2012 2013 20.83 86.3 2013 2014 30.03 94 2014 2015 30.65 87.6 2015 2016 29.54 91.1 Delmar HS 2011 2012 16.22 87.9 2012 2013 20.28 89.3 2013 2014 19.46 92.3 2014 2015 14.89 88.4 2015 2016 17.91 82.2 Indian River HS 2011 2012 23.81 88.4 2012 2013 20.87 88.9 2013 2014 27.31 93.7 2014 2015 23.23 88 2015 2016 23.53 90.4 Sussex Central HS 2011 2012 12.8 88.9 2012 2013 10.56 87.5 2013 2014 9.85 88.5 2014 2015 13.01 87.1 2015 2016 10.4 80.5 Laurel HS 2011 2012 6.45 65.2 2012 2013 5.83 62.4 2013 2014 7.61 62.4 90

2014 2015 4.39 81.6 2015 2016 7.59 75 Seaford Senior HS 2011 2012 12 73 2012 2013 11.19 74.2 2013 2014 8.13 80.1 2014 2015 10.49 79.8 2015 2016 2.54 78.1 Woodbridge HS 2011 2012 5.51 71.4 2012 2013 13.76 60.7 2013 2014 9.16 82.7 2014 2015 8.2 81.6 2015 2016 8.47 79.3 Charter & Charter School of Wilm. 2011 2012 95.04 98 Special Curr. 2012 2013 95.92 95.2 2013 2014 94.2 99 2014 2015 97.79 98.3 2015 2016 94.61 99.6 Delaware Military Academy 2011 2012 33.59 95.6 2012 2013 39.69 99.2 2013 2014 30.77 95 2014 2015 37.41 97.9 2015 2016 35.43 100 Cab Calloway School of the Arts 2011 2012 70.3 97 2012 2013 61.61 95 2013 2014 60.53 95 2014 2015 61.86 100 2015 2016 63.25 100 Conrad School of Science 2011 2012 27.5 95.6 2012 2013 34.26 91.9 2013 2014 44.93 95 2014 2015 46.45 99.4 2015 2016 41.67 99.4 Vocational & Delcastle Technical HS 2011 2012 7.34 92 Technical 2012 2013 6.17 89.9 2013 2014 8.12 94.1 2014 2015 4.75 91.6 2015 2016 6.02 94.6 91

Howard HS of Technology 2011 2012 3.5 93.4 2012 2013 2.92 85.1 2013 2014 2.65 89.7 2014 2015 4.62 91.1 2015 2016 2.78 93.8 Paul M. Hodgson Vocational 2011 2012 9.44 92.4 Technical HS 2012 2013 7.08 94.9 2013 2014 12 95 2014 2015 10.17 97.9 2015 2016 8.26 97.1 St. Georges Technical HS 2011 2012 11.65 98.8 2012 2013 10.28 96.9 2013 2014 7.75 99 2014 2015 14.23 99 2015 2016 12.3 98.8 Polytech HS 2011 2012 21.82 92.3 2012 2013 25.95 98.1 2013 2014 23.66 97 2014 2015 23.88 96.3 2015 2016 22.38 96.6 Sussex Technical HS 2011 2012 34.16 95.5 2012 2013 35.2 98.7 2013 2014 31.96 97 2014 2015 30.82 97.7 2015 2016 24 96.6