Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude? Performance Trends of Top Students

In this study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, achievement trends from the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Growth Research Database were used to track students who scored at or above the 90th percentile on this assessment in order to see if they maintained their high achievement. The middle school/high school cohort consisted of 91,643 students from more than 800 schools in 28 states. Around three in five students identified as high-achieving in the first year of the study remained high-achieving in the last year of the study. Students who fell below the 90th percentile typically stayed at the 70th percentile or higher.