July 9, 2008
DCPS Test Scores Rise Across the Board
At a press conference this morning at Ward 7’s Plummer Elementary, Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee happily announced that student performance on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System (DC-CAS) exams show improvement in reading and math at both the elementary and secondary levels. According to a release, elementary schools scored 46 percent proficient in reading, up 8 points from 2007, while math scores rose 11 points. Secondary schools showed 39 percent proficient in reading and 36 percent proficient in math, a 9-point increase in both subjects. While these figures still lag behind national averages, they represent a significant improvement for the District.
The DC-CAS is the test used to determine proficiency under the No Child Left Behind Law, and is taken by D.C. students in grades 3-8 and 10. Both the mayor and chancellor credited former DCPS superintendent Clifford Janey for putting in place some reforms that likely influenced the growth, but Rhee added, “These are strong initial gains for the administration’s first year. Our students performed incredibly well and this is only the beginning.â€
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
[ report this ]
Whichever way you slice it, less than 40% proficiency among secondary students is not "incredibly" good. Far from it, in fact.
[ report this ]
hey sumergocognito, i think we all realize that. but you can't deny that this is progress. if it's repeated with the averages up at 50% next year, then heck yeah, things are working...
...which brings up a question. if you're supposed to have "adequate yearly progress" in these scores, what happens when everything works and you end up with 100% proficency? is there something in the law that takes into account what happens when the goals have been reached?
[ report this ]
Believe it or not, IMGoph, the answer is no. Even more craziness: a school can actually be placed on warning if its proficiency scores drop, say, from 98% to 94%. A drop is a drop, regardless of the point from which it dropped, so sayeth NCLB.
A key component of "progress," to this non-DCPS teacher, includes longitudinal success -- and one year of increases ain't it. Anyone in education knows reform efforts take three years to produce changes...but step aside as Fenty and Rhee scramble to claim the accolades anyway.
As for whether it's "only the beginning," let me introduce the inexplicable phenomenon every teacher has experienced where one year your students are collectively bright, sharp, on-the-ball kids, and the next year they're brain-dead mouth-breathers.
[ report this ]
I don't mean to slight the achievement. If Rhee had said "showed incredible improvement" she would have been right. My point was to differentiate between relatively good and absolutely good.
[ report this ]
While these figures still lag behind national averages, they represent a significant improvement for the District.
And by "lag behind" you mean "still dead last across the board."
[ report this ]
This is good news and I am not surprised. As a DCPS teacher, I know how much work we put into preparing kids for the test, not merely teaching to the test. In elementary school on the reading test, for example, there are a lot of questions where students must read a passage and determine its main idea. Or read another passage and choose the best title for it, or whether it represents fantasy or reality and why. For the most part, if students are doing well in grade level work, they will do well on the DC CAS. But there is one new feature on the math section that may surprise you. Students have to answer questions called brief constructed responses. If a child is good in math and poor in reading and writing, he will not do well on this important part. A brief constructed response on math may be something as simple as put into words how you solved a problem. But believe me, if students have not had months preparing brief constructed responses, (and we have been doing this), they won't score proficient.
[ report this ]
Monkey, hey, thanks for pointing out what we all know (and for that neat map of the U.S.??)
But anyway,congrats to DC teachers and students for showing some real progress. Yes, there is a long way to go but a little good news about DCPS won't hurt.