The Maryland High School Assessments (HSA) are tests that ...

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Method
The project was based on school, teacher and student data collected for the
2002-2003 and the 2003-2004 school years for students throughout four school
systems of Maryland. The student-level variables are very similar across the four
school systems because of the mandates for reporting to the state, although
differences at the teacher/school level exist. The dependent variable (the criterion) for
the study, in each system, is the English 1 HSA scale score for students who took the
exam as 9 th graders in the Spring of 2004.
An ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression for identification of
factors that put students at risk for failure was first conducted for each school system.
Then, if justified by the intra-class correlation (ICC), a two-level HLM (Bryk et al.,
1996) was performed to partition variance into components for different levels of the
hierarchy (students nested within teachers/schools).
Each of the following systems was able to provide variables at both the
student level and the school level:
School System One. Approximately 26,000 students are enrolled in 32 schools in the
school system. Student body consists of White (50%), African American (43%)
American Indian/Alaskan Native (1 %), Asian (3 %) and Hispanic (3 %)..
Approximately 16.7% of the students receive reduced-price meals and 3.4% of the
students attend the special education program. The data for this study (n=1244)
consist of eight predictors
School System Two. More than 40,000 students are enrolled in 51 schools in the
system. The school system has the seventh largest student enrollment of the 24 public
school systems in the state. Approximately 2% of the students are second language
speakers, 15% of the students receive reduced-price meals and 13.4% of the students
attend the special education program. The data (n=2663) from this school system
consist of eight predictors.
School System Three. The school system consistently ranks as the state’s top school
districts based on student performance on the state School Assessments. Student body
consists of White (61%), African American (20%), Asian (13%) and Hispanic (4%).
Students score above the national averages on standardized tests and over 85% of
graduates continue their education beyond high school. Approximately 1.2% of the