The raking procedure involved four dimensions. The variables used to define the dimensions are listed below along with the categories making up the initial raking cells for each dimension.
In states containing districts that participated in TUDA at grades 4 and 8, the initial cells were created separately for each TUDA district and the balance of the state. Similar to the procedure used for school and student nonresponse adjustments, limits were placed on the magnitude of the cell sizes and adjustment factors to prevent unstable raking adjustments that could have resulted in unacceptably large or small adjustment factors. Levels of a dimension were combined whenever there were fewer than 30 assessed or excluded students (20 for any of the replicates) in a category, if the smallest adjustment was less than 0.5, or if the largest adjustment was greater than 2 for the full sample or for any replicate.
If collapsing was necessary for the race/ethnicity dimension, the American Indian/Alaska Native, Other Race, and Data not Collected categories were generally combined together first. If further collapsing was necessary, Asian/Pacific Islander was combined next followed by White, not Hispanic. Black, not Hispanic and Hispanic were generally combined together if either category needed to be collapsed. In some instances, all seven categories had to be collapsed.
If collapsing was necessary for the SD/ELL dimension, the SD/not ELL and SD/ELL categories were combined first, followed by ELL/not SD if further collapsing was necessary. In some instances, all four categories had to be collapsed.