Student growth percentiles (SGP) are a statistic that show how much a student has improved their performance on state assessments from one year to the next compared to their academic peers. They help educators understand how students performed relative to their academic peers and whether a student grew more than, less than or the same as their academic peers. When considered in conjunction with scaled scores and achievement levels, student growth can provide a more complete picture of student learning.

SGPs are on a scale of 1 to 99, with lower numbers indicating smaller relative growth and higher numbers indicating larger relative growth. For example, if Student A had a score of 60 on the 2022 MCAS and scored a 75 on the 2024 MCAS, their SGP would be 85, which means that they showed more growth than 85 percent of their academic peers.

To calculate SGPs, a statistical technique called quantile regression places students’ performance on a normative scale and compares their performance to that of academic peers. Academic peers are identified as students statewide in the same grade with similar test scores and who share some demographic characteristics, such as gender and income, and some educational programs, such as sheltered English immersion and special education.

Each year, a student’s SGP is calculated using a combination of their previous year’s MCAS performance and the results from the current year’s assessment. This process allows SGPs to be reported for up to two years. In order to have valid SGPs, students must have been enrolled in their teacher of record for at least 60% of the class during the school year prior to state testing and have been tested at least twice.

When analyzing student growth data, it is important to remember that SGP rankings are determined anew each year, so differences between years should be interpreted with caution. In particular, differences in SGPs a few points apart should not be viewed as meaningful, even though the students may have been tested in the same years.

It should also be noted that average SGPs at the district and school level can fluctuate from year to year. This is because a median SGP is usually established using only the current year’s data, and half of all students will have growth above or below the median.

While SGPs can be used for a variety of purposes, they are most often utilized to identify student strengths and needs. As such, it is recommended that they be used with other information about a student, such as their scaled score and achievement level, to make informed decisions for instruction.

In fall 2019, district-level SGPs became available for students in grades 4 through 11. These results are displayed on the Student Profile/Growth dashboard, with Window Specific SGPs being used to display student growth projections when a school selects a prior or current window during report customization. For more information about SGPs, including how to use this data, please see our SGP training video and FAQs.