Improving Education -- Ranking Arkansas High Schools by Performance vs. Expected Performance

I decided to kick off this summer by developing a model to rank Arkansas high schools, not just based on test scores, but based on how schools scored against how they could be EXPECTED to score.

I used a regression model that takes demographic and enrollment data that is beyond the ability of the school to control. The individual schools' data is fed to the model to create predicted ACT Composite scores. The schools' predicted score is subtracted from the actual 2021-2022 average ACT Composite score, resulting in a "residual."

Residuals that are greater than zero indicate a school outperformed the model's expectation. Schools with a residual less than zero underperformed against the expectation. Schools were then ranked by residual in descending order. The highest ranked school had the highest residual.

Some schools were removed from the ranking as outliers or special cases with attributes that made them so different from typical high schools that including them would inappropriately skew the model.

In the end, 232 high schools were ranked. Some surprises on the high end and the low end. 

My hope is for schools that beat their predictions and schools that fell short to be studied further to discover variables that are under the school's control and lead to higher or lower scores. If these variables can be manipulated in low-performing schools, perhaps we can improve the educational outcomes for a lot of Arkansas students. 



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