State education officials are not satisfied with initial assessment numbers presented at the Delaware State Board of Education meeting Thursday.
[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/murphyexcerpt.mp3|titles= Delaware Secretary of Education Mark Murphy discusses this year’s student standardized test results.]
While there were significant increases in student performance between the 2011 and 2012 Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System, scores flattened for the 2013 reporting year, and in some cases, dipped slightly.
The overall percentage of students in grades 3-10 who tested proficient in reading dipped to 72 percent this year, compared to 73 percent the previous year. In 2011, 61 percent of students in those grades were deemed proficient, meaning they met or exceeded knowledge requirements.
In mathematics, students in grades 3-10 who tested proficient dropped to 70 percent from 73 percent the previous year. In 2011, 62 percent of students in those grades measured proficient in mathematics.
DCAS scores are an integral accountability factor in the voluntary Race to the Top federal grant program. The program, which earned Delaware $119 million over four years, is meant to jumpstart and give seed funding to education reform in states with approved plans.
Federal goals for education reform programs include cutting the achievement gaps between subgroups (minorities and whites, students with compared to students without disabilities, those with low socioeconomic status compared to those without) by 50 percent and 82 percent across-the-board proficiency by 2017.
Teri Quinn Gray, president of the state’s board of education, questioned the 2012 numbers presented by Brian Touchette of the Delaware Department of Education’s Accountability Resources Workgroup. She noted the large gains from 2011 to 2012 and credit was given to new programs implemented through RTTT and general education reform in the state.
“I didn’t expect that it wouldn’t flatten out at all, but overall we wouldn’t expect we would have a 10 percent jump in the first year and then flatten out this early in the game.
“That is unacceptable for us.”
Mark Murphy, Delaware secretary for education, said after the state school board meeting that he had a “mixed reaction” to the results.
“There are certainly some parts to highlight at the state level to see students at middle school and high school score at higher levels is uplifting and really recognizes our increase in rigor in our middle schools and high schools as our students score at the advanced level at a higher rate,” he said.
“At the same time, there are other areas that were not as positive such as the fact that we did not see our students make the type of growth that they made last year so to see gains that are less significant this year is not indicative of the efforts we are seeing put forth in the field.”
Other numbers in this year’s results include an 87 percent participation rate in the 10th grade science assessment, unchanged from last year. The state looks for at least 95 percent participation (85,000 to 90,000 students each year) and Touchette said officials will look into those numbers to see why schools may not be administering the test. He notes that generally science may not be given the same weight in schools as math and reading, which are both federally required and used as a piece of accountability data for schools. Proficiency of 5th, 8th and 10th graders tested in science either dipped slightly or remain unchanged.
The test results also showed slight increases in 4th and 7th graders tested for proficiency in social studies.
Murphy said officials will continue to unpack the numbers over the next month and dig deeper into the results to identify trends and “the whys” in the scores and make plans for improvements. He is looking to district and school administrators and teachers to identify what is working and what is not working in the effort to reach proficiency in all subjects.
He said a number of factors across the state contributed to both gains and losses in DCAS scores including schools that did or did not foster collaboration and the amount of focus put on improving scores.
But regardless of the reason, Murphy said he was not surprised by the results.
“Frankly, gone are the days of a decade ago where we’re surprised,” Murphy said. “People in my type of position are surprised because the results were shipped from some testing company multiple months later. We’re in a situation where I see a constant stream of data about how our kids are doing.”
He also said that while the macro view may seem negative, the micro view of student scores is different.
“We made a policy decision a year ago to focus on the development of every student,” Murphy said. “More of our students reached their growth targets, made them and exceeded those growth targets this year than last year and if we start to dig into that at a school level what that tells me is that while proficiency did not go up in many areas or only went up a little bit we are seeing closer attention being paid to each individual child.” Students are improving even if they aren’t making proficiency standards yet, he said.
The state's summary of scores also highlighted scores for Partnership Zone schools, 10 Delaware schools identified as the lowest performing in the state. Bancroft Elementary School, in the Christina School District, saw a dramatic drop in reading proficiency in 2013, despite having implemented a rigorous school improvement plan this year. Bancroft was named a Partnership Zone School and as such, submitted an improvement plan to the state and received additional funding to enact its plan. While the school saw a 55 percent reading proficiency in Spring 2012, it fell to 31 percent in Spring 2013.
The 24-point drop was significant, but Brian Curtis, deputy officer with DDOE’s School Turnaround Unit, said Bancroft will not abandon its plan and state and school officials will dig deeper into the numbers to pinpoint the challenges on each grade level.
“What that means as far as teach and learning and what happens in the building those are things that we’ll sit down and talk with the principal and with the district leadership and really try to identify and plan for,” Curtis said. “Looking at their PZ plan, we want to know what worked and what didn’t work and give them the latitude to get rid of what didn’t work and double down on what they may have believe worked last year.”
Although Christina School District will not receive any of the state’s Race to the Top grant money for the 2013-14 school year, the Partnership Zone schools are a part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and its plan will not be affected by it dropping RTTT.
When the computerized DCAS was adopted in 2011 and scores were reported, administrators noted low proficiency percentages were expected as school officials and students transitioned to the new state assessment. In the 2013-14 school year, the state enters the final year of DCAS testing. In the 2014-15 year Delaware is expected to adopt the Smarter Balanced Assessment, for which it is a governing state.
“For me, while the score, the proficiency scores may actually drop when we administer smarter balanced, I believe that’s a step forward for our state and our country because it is more honest and authentic information for our students,” Murphy said.
The full version of Thursday's DCAS statewide results is available at the Department of Education's website. It includes breakdowns by district and school.