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Test scores

PURCELL EL · ABILENE, TX
See how it ranks: all Texas schools by score · Taylor County schools by score

STAAR, SY 2023-24

All grades, all students. % Meets Grade Level or Above.
Reading
38.0%
State avg 51.8%
District avg 45.2%
County avg 53.3%
+32.0pp since 2020-21
Mathematics
27.0%
State avg 42.0%
District avg 34.3%
County avg 41.9%
+27.0pp since 2020-21
Science
11.0%
State avg 35.6%
District avg 27.2%
County avg 37.3%
+11.0pp since 2020-21
Social Studies
N/A
State avg 45.8%
District avg 43.3%
County avg 48.9%

What this means: On the STAAR, Texas's statewide test, about 38 of every 100 students at this school read at grade level, about 27 of 100 do math at grade level, and about 11 of 100 are at grade level in science. Across all Texas schools, those numbers are about 52, 42, and 36. Reading scores are up about 32 points since 2020, while math scores are up about 27 points and science scores are up about 11 points.

BeatsExpectations

Demographically-adjusted score · methodology
Tier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
28.3%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
38.8%
based on TX schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-10.4pp
below demographic expectation

What this means: About 28% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 39% typical for Texas schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Texas's top nor bottom 10%.

BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →

4-year history

All grades, all students. PURCELL   Texas avg

Reading

3162020-214262021-2242132022-2352382023-24
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2023-2438.0%45.2%53.3%51.8%
SY 2022-2313.0%36.2%38.2%42.0%
SY 2021-226.0%35.1%37.7%41.8%
SY 2020-216.0%28.2%28.7%30.6%

Mathematics

3002020-213702021-223972022-2342272023-24
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2023-2427.0%34.3%41.9%42.0%
SY 2022-237.0%28.1%33.9%39.4%
SY 2021-220.0%30.2%32.5%37.2%
SY 2020-210.0%33.3%34.9%29.9%

Science

2602020-213202021-223202022-2336112023-24
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2023-2411.0%27.2%37.3%35.6%
SY 2022-230.0%24.6%27.5%31.6%
SY 2021-220.0%19.4%23.1%32.5%
SY 2020-210.0%23.0%26.9%25.7%

Recent discussions

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How to read these scores

What is STAAR?
STAAR (the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) is the annual statewide test used by all Texas public schools. Students in grades 3 through 8 take it in reading and math, with science added in grades 5 and 8 and social studies in grade 8. High school students take End-of-Course (EOC) STAAR exams in Algebra I, English I, English II, Biology, and U.S. History.
What does "% Meets Grade Level or Above" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school whose scores reached or exceeded the "Meets Grade Level" threshold on the test. Texas reports four performance levels (Did Not Meet, Approaches, Meets, Masters). "Meets" and above means the student is performing at grade level or above. A higher number is better.
What does 38.0% mean for Reading at PURCELL EL?
It means about 38.0 percent of students tested at PURCELL EL performed at grade level or above on the STAAR Reading test in 2023-24. The statewide average for Texas that year was 51.8%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Texas, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Texas Education Agency, State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), via the Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR). School-level All Students subgroup. Headline metric is the cumulative "Meets Grade Level or Above" rate.
How often is it updated?
STAAR is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.

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