About Growth Planner API

The Growth Planner allows users to track previous assessment results reported as Lexile and Quantile measures and use the current and historical assessment data to forecast and monitor growth toward key milestones from as early as 3rd grade. The growth forecast can be used to determine if the student is on track to be college and career ready by 12th grade.

The Growth Planner API does three tasks:
  • Plots the student's current measurement and any historical assessment data.
  • Projects the student’s likely growth through Grade 12.
  • Compares projected growth to a standard.

To plot measurements, the API needs to know the grade level of the student (grade), the Lexile or Quantile measures, the date the test administered (date), and an estimate to describe what part of the school year the test was administered (using date and school_year_start_date). The measurements are then plotted at the appropriate place within the grade (on the x-axis).

To project growth, the API projects where the student will likely measure at the end of Grade 12. If the student has less than 4 Lexile or Quantile measures, the API chooses one of the ten decile curves that best approximates the student's provided measurements (examination of residuals to identify the decile curve with smallest sum of square residuals). If the student has four scores, then the API calculates a trajectory for the student (quadratic model using OLS). This curve is then examined to determine if the maximum is reached prior to Grade 11. If so, then one of the ten decile curves is substituted.

The API is available using an XML-RPC request.