Schools dig into test scores

By Tanner Kent
Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO June 30, 2009 11:33 pm

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Read the test scores

With results from the state’s standardized assessment freshly in hand and only two months before school starts, the race is on for school officials to turn their mounds of data into tools for student achievement.
On Tuesday the Minnesota Department of Education released results from the 2008-09 MCA-II reading and math tests, which are used to gauge levels of student achievement in grades 3-8 and 10 for reading, and grades 3-8 and 11 for math. Results from the MCA-IIs are then used in the summer to determine whether schools are meeting “adequate yearly progress” as defined in the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Statewide, proficiencies in reading and math remained stable or increased at nearly all grades. The biggest jump from last year was in the much-maligned 11th-grade math test — which, under Minnesota’s new Graduation-Required Assessment for Diploma program, will require summer remediation if students don’t pass.
Last year Minnesota students were only 34.4 percent proficient in 11th-grade math. This year, that figure rose to 41.6 percent. In this area, Blue Earth (65.1), Waseca (59.1) and Le Sueur-Henderson (50.5) had the highest percentages of 11th-graders proficient in math.
But for many school officials, the data itself are not nearly so important as how the data will be used.
“Data doesn’t give us the answers,” said Cindy Amoroso, curriculum director for Mankato Area Public Schools, “but data will give us the questions we need to ask next.”
While the punitive implications and expectations of No Child Left Behind have been long and roundly criticized by educators, one of its most apparent benefits has been integrating data into classroom instruction.
For instance:
Gwen Walz, assessment coordinator for Mankato schools, began downloading the district’s MCA-II test data early this week. Soon, she’ll begin distributing it to various administrative and staff teams.
District officials will then use the data to make curriculum modifications. Principals will use the data to look at building-wide trends. Professional Learning Communities, which are staff teams, will use the data to enhance classroom instruction and identify the strengths and weaknesses of individual students.
Last summer Mankato math teachers used several years of data to help revamp the district’s secondary curriculum and are ready to implement the modifications this fall. This summer, Amoroso said the district will be looking at vertical PLCs wherein, for example, all the principals of east-side schools could get together and look at math instruction from one grade to the next.
“We use (data) outcomes to determine such things as allocation of resources and teachers, curricular changes and special student programming,” Amoroso said.
And schools are finding that results can come quickly.
Nancy Kluck, principal of St. Peter’s South Elementary Learning Center, said instruction even at the kindergarten level has become “very prescriptive.” Instruction is tailored to each student and curriculum is aligned to the next grade level. The result was this year’s elementary MCA-II scores in St. Peter were as high as any in the region.
Willis Schoeb, superintendent of Maple River Schools, said his district made a concerted effort in the last few years to raise achievement at the middle school levels. On this year’s MCA-II tests, Maple River middle-schoolers were between 10 and 15 percentage points above state averages in most areas.
“We spent a lot of time focusing at the middle school,” Schoeb said. “We’re very happy with the results.”