Coding Documents for Disaggregation of Scores ITBS/ITED

The Iowa Department of Education has asked Iowa schools to cooperate in obtaining statewide test data for various subgroups of students. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Section 1111(b)(3) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) require that each state, local education agency (LEA), and school building be able to disaggregate achievement information for subgroups. The subgroups of particular interest are based on migrant status, English language proficiency, special education status, racial/ethnic background, and free or reduced-price lunch eligibility. This subgroup information is required by the federal government and is linked to Title I funding. In addition, to meet the requirements of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), the state must know how students with IEPs (Individualized Education Program) performed on a statewide basis. The Department also is encouraging each district to obtain achievement information for subgroups of its own students so that the district might become more aware of differences in performance that its schools might be able to address. State subgroup data in reading, math, and science are reported in the Iowa Condition of Education Report. In order to make subgroup scores available to schools and to the state, information on migrant status, English language proficiency, gender, racial/ethnic group, free-reduced lunch eligibility, and IEP must be provided in a bar code data file in advance of testing or coded on student answer documents prior to scoring. In addition, NCLB provides for reporting school and district achievement using scores of students who have been continuously enrolled, at least for the past year. Thus, coding also needs to identify students who have not been enrolled in the district or their current building for the past year. The sections below describe the definitions and categories chosen by the Iowa Department of Education for coding and explain how the coding should be done. (All public districts are required to use bar code labels for this purpose. See separate documents on bar coding on this website to learn how information should be provided in that form.)

Gender

There is a separate section on the back page of the answer document for coding gender. This coding is described in the Directions for Administration.

Race/Ethnicity

There is a separate section on the back page of the answer document for coding this information. The directions for completing this coding are in the Directions for Administration. These directions permit the coding of more than one category for students for whom a single category does not adequately describe their racial/ethnic background.

Special Education
Free or Reduced-price Meal Eligibility
English Language Learner
Migrant Student

There is a separate section on the back page of the answer document for coding all of this information. Under "Test Administrator Use Only", there is a section called "Program(s)" for coding students who belong to each of these categories.

• SE stands for special education. It should be filled in for students who have an IEP, no matter what the type of disability might be.
• F/RL stands for free/reduced lunch. It should be filled in for students who are eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals. The coding is based on eligibility and not participation. Therefore, an eligible student who does not participate should still be coded.
• ELL stands for English Language Learner. A child is considered to be an ELL by the Iowa Department of Education if he/she has a language background other than English and the child's chance of success in an English-only classroom is below that of peers of comparable ability who have English as their primary language.
• MG stands for migrant status. A child is considered a migrant if he/she has moved in the past 36 months from one district to another so that the parent(s) could obtain temporary or seasonal employment in agriculture as their principal means of livelihood.

Full Academic Year

In the "Test Administrator Use Only" section of the answer document, Column P is used to provide information about the continuous enrollment of students in their building and the district. (This also applies to users of the bar code service.)

• 0 = student was not in the district or building on the first day of testing last year
• 1 = student was in the district but not in the building on the first day of testing last year
• Blank = student was in both the district and the building during the first day of testing last year

This coding applies to the students in "reportable grades" only (3-8 and 11). When a reportable grade is the lowest-level grade in a building's configuration, those students should be coded as though they were in the building during the previous year. That is, they should be coded 0, or they should be left uncoded: their code should indicate simply whether they were in the district on the first day of testing last year.

Example #1: In a district in which buildings are configured K-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, grade 4 is a reportable grade that is the lowest-level grade in its building. These grade 4 students should be coded 0 if they were not in the district last year (as 3rd grade students) on the first day of testing. Otherwise, Column P should be left uncoded. No student in this building should be coded as 1.

Example #2 : In a district in which buildings are configured K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, grades 4, 8, and 11 are all reportable grades. However, none is the lowest-level grade in its building. Therefore, students in the reportable grades can be coded in Column P as 0 or 1, or they can be left uncoded if they were in the same building in the previous grade on the first day of testing.

Except for gender and race/ethnicity, the coding described above should be done by school staff rather than by students. Questions about ELL status should be addressed to the Iowa Department of Education at (515) 281-3805. Questions about migrant status can be directed to the Department at (515) 281-3999.