Student and school predictors of high-stakes assessment in science

This study examined both student and school predictors of science achievement as measured by a high-stakes state test. The study involved 23,854 fifth-grade students from 198 elementary schools in a large urban school district with a diverse student population. Multilevel modeling was conducted to examine both student and school predictors simultaneously. The study examined three sets of variables: (a) student characteristics, (b) the impact of reading and mathematics achievement on science achievement with English language learners, and (c) school characteristics. The results add new insights to the existing literature while also confirming the known results. The study contributes to the literature by addressing a high-stakes science test (compared to national and international databases), using diverse student groups including English language learners in urban settings, examining elementary school science (compared to middle and high school science), and using a multilevel framework (compared to a single predictor).