Fourth-graders post FCAT writing gains

Most still fall below state averages, but district officials are encouraged by the 10 percent improvement in elementary scores over last year.

Click here to view FCAT scores from the Tampa Bay area and Florida

In what the Pasco County school district praised as a success, writing scores for fourth-graders jumped by almost 10 percent from 2002 to 2003.

As measured by the essay and story writing section of the FCAT that about 4,121 fourth-graders took in February, the average score in Pasco's 32 elementary schools rose from 3.2 to 3.5.

Though still below the 3.6 state average for fourth-graders, Assistant Superintendent Susan Rine expressed satisfaction with the results. The highest score possible is 6.

Special praise was reserved for three schools, graded with a "D" last year, which boosted their writing scores in 2003: Cox Elementary and Pasco High schools in Dade City and Sunray Elementary School in New Port Richey.

"I'm pleased, very pleased, with the improvement in our schools," Rine said. "I think our teachers are doing a better job of teaching writing than ever has been done before."

The other two grades taking the writing part of FCAT, eighth and 10th, showed no improvement over last year.

The average score for the 3,999 eighth-graders stayed flat at 3.8. Tenth-graders, 3,181 strong, saw their average score dip from 3.8 to 3.7.

Rine downplayed the significance of the lower high school scores.

"A tenth of a point just isn't that much of a difference," she said Friday afternoon as the results came in from Tallahassee.

Schools showing the biggest improvements, like Sunray Elementary, credited the intensity of preparation. The school's average writing grade climbed 21 percent from 2.9 to 3.5.

During "club time," the Wednesday morning fun period for elementary kids, struggling writers were enrolled in writing tutoring.

Sunray opened three years ago, and principal Deborah Minshew insists the school's D grade last year, based on 2002 FCAT scores, is unrepresentative.

"Nobody likes to be labeled a D. Certainly the pressure to improve comes from us saying we don't think our kids are D kids," Minshew said Friday.

The state won't assign new letter grades to schools for several weeks. The grades determine bonus money schools receive.

As in 2002, Pasco's writing scores this year came in lower than the average state scores.

The fourth-graders' 3.5 was lower than the state's 3.6. Pasco eighth-graders scored 3.8 versus the state's 3.9, and tenth-graders' 3.7 was below the state's 3.8.