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Student tests mostly good news
By BARBARA BEHRENDT © St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2001
Reading and math scores were above the state averages at every grade level tested for accountability purposes, but reading scores for the district dropped slightly at the fourth grade level compared with last year. Despite those drops, the scores show good news nearly across the board, when compared to state and previous district scores. In the areas where the district most focused its academic attention this year -- writing to explain, middle and high school reading, and math across all grade levels -- students have shown significant progress. "Our bottom line is that we have seen great results in areas where we have put our focus," said Jan Morphew, director of research and accountability. "You've heard me say it all along. Show me the target and we will hit it." The scores on the FCAT, as it is called, are the backbone of the state's accountability program and the primary basis for grades each school receives. The grades are expected to be released soon. Citrus officials on Tuesday were just beginning their lengthy analysis of the pages of complex charts that comprise the test results. While students in grades three through 10 take the FCAT, only a snapshot of grade levels and subject levels is considered for accountability purposes. At the fourth grade level, students are tested in reading and writing. At fifth grade, they are tested in math and writing. In the eighth and 10th grades, the testing is in reading, writing and math. At Inverness Primary School, which recorded the highest combined writing score in the county, principal Terry Charles made sure the accomplishment was announced schoolwide before the end of the day. "We could hear the applause," Charles said. "It was a real team effort." The Inverness Primary students earned a combined score of 4.0 and Charles credited several initiatives at the school. "We have a very well done, sequenced, linked writing process from prekindergarten through fifth grade," she said. "And children's needs in writing are diagnosed from Day One and children make progress in one-on-one settings."
Morphew said that the drops in reading scores at the elementary level were a disappointment. But part of the problem with analyzing this year's results is that the state, in order to get results back faster, used only FCAT questions that could be computer-graded in the overall scores. The more complicated questions, which required short or long written answers, the so-called "performance-based" questions, were not counted toward the totals and so this year's scores are not really comparable to last year's, Morphew said. That could be part of the reason why math scores across the district shot up. But Morphew said schools were also very focused on pulling up their math achievement. One area where there was obvious improvement over last year was in writing. At the elementary schools last year, students did better in writing a story in every case than in a section on writing to explain. This year, those writing to explain scores were higher than the story writing category at every school but one. "That is a turnaround," Morphew said. "That's very good news there." Both middle and high school students also made improvements in reading, another area where there was a large focus after some students struggled there last year. "There has been growth in the reading area at the secondary level that has been significant," Morphew said. "That's where we had problems last year." At Lecanto High School, principal Steve Richardson was pleased to see higher mean scores than last year in reading and math, even if the average in writing slipped slightly. "We've been focused on reading, but we've really tried to maintain the other two," he said. "I'm not sure we still know how to deal with reading at the high school level . . . High school is not really geared to teaching reading." The focus has been on getting students to read for content more than the old-fashioned focus on reading literature. "We still feel like we're in the beginning stages of addressing the reading issue," Richardson said. The scores are challenging to understand because lower than average numbers compared with other districts or state averages don't tell the full story. While the schools look at comparison numbers showing how they did related to other schools in the district or the state, the real focus of the FCAT results is to analyze how students fared against a standard set by the state. The FCAT scores released Tuesday include significant details about how many students earned at the higher end of the scores. The higher the percentage of students earning at the higher standard, the better the chance of higher school grades. A large percentage of students scoring at the high end means a large percentage of students learning at the higher level. At Forest Ridge Elementary School, where school officials were getting the new school's first batch of FCAT results, principal Renna Jablonskis said the analysis had just begun. But from what she could see, scores were above the district averages in all three subject areas. "I do think it speaks very highly of the dedication of our teachers, our students and our parents in working hard this first year. It's very exciting," Jablonskis said.
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