Preparing to address the State Board of Education Thursday afternoon on the 2013-2014 Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System, state Education Secretary Mark Murphy called the occasion “an exciting day.”
The annual “educational checkup,” Murphy says, tells students, parents and educators “how they’re doing, whether they’re getting better, whether they’re growing.”
Despite Murphy’s enthusiasm, the results this year — the end of a four-year run with DCAS before the launch of the new Smarter Balanced testing program next year — were decidedly ho-hum.
In virtually every subject at every grade level tested, the statewide changes from 2012-2013 to 2013-2014 were insignificant, and that largely followed that pattern shown the year before, said Brian M. Touchette, director of assessment in the State Department of Education.
In reading, for example, of all students tested in grades 3-10, 72 percent met or exceeded proficiency in 2014, the same as in 2013, and slightly below the 73 percent meeting or exceeding proficiency in 2012.
For math, overall proficiency for grades 3-10 dropped from 73 percent in 2012 to 70 percent in 2013 to 69 percent this year. A drop of one or two percentage points is not considered statistically significant, Touchette said.
Science scores showed gains in proficiency in grades 8 (51 percent, up from 50 in 2013) and 10 (46 percent, up from 42) and a small drop, from 50 percent to 49 in grade 5. Social studies proficiency dropped slightly, from 69 percent to 65 in grade 4 and from 60 percent to 59 in grade 7.
The results showed little progress in narrowing the “achievement gap” between white and minority students, between those from lower income and middle or upper income families, between English language learner students and non-English language learners, and between students with disabilities and those without disabilities.
For grades 3-10, 59 percent of African American students were rated proficient in reading, the same as in 2013, as were 62 percent of the Hispanic students, down 1 point from 2013, while 82 percent of all white students were rated proficient in both years.
By socioeconomic status, 61 percent of low SES students and 85 percent of non-low SES students were rated proficient in reading this year. Both totals were down 1 point from 2013.
While the big picture results showed little overall change, Murphy did point to several schools that have demonstrated “some incredible results and some incredible achievements.”
Lewis Dual Language School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District has seen a 10 point gain in math proficiency and a 7 point gain in reading proficiency in the last three years. In fifth grade reading, proficiency soared from 48.4 percent in 2013 to 667 percent this year, Murphy said.
Other schools registering strong gains over the past three years included Booker T. Washington Elementary in the Capital district, Marbrook Elementary in Red Clay, and the East Side and Family Foundations charter schools, Murphy said.
But Murphy also acknowledged, without naming names, that “we also see schools where there is not that growth and there is not that achievement.” Educators in those districts, he said, “are taking this very seriously and asking hard questions [about] how we can do better next year.”
The state’s initial analysis of this year’s DCAS results also identified schools that registered the greatest growth in scores among students who began the year by testing at performance level one (well below proficiency). Two schools — Lake Forest East Elementary and St. Georges Technical High School — had more than 90 percent of their students in this grouping exceed their performance growth targets in both reading and math for the year. Sussex Technical High School also had 91 percent of its level one students exceed their performance growth targets in math while Sussex Academy of Arts and Sciences Middle School saw 91 percent of its level one students realize similar growth for the year.
Overall, Murphy said, the results indicate that gains in performance registered two years ago are being sustained in an environment that aims to elevate expectations for students.
Next year, however, the state’s testing program will change, moving from DCAS, which was administered in the fall and spring, to give a picture of individual student growth during the year, to the Smarter Balanced assessment, which is designed to be aligned with the Common Core education standards being adopted in Delaware and many other states. The new tests will be administered to grades 3-8 and 11 next year. DCAS tests will continue to be administered in science (grades 5, 8 and 10) and social studies (grades 4 and 7) and to students with disabilities.
The new tests, he said, provide “the opportunity to assess more real-world skills,” like critical thinking and problem solving. “It will be a more sophisticated, richer assessment [than DCAS] … and will provide better information on whether children are on path for college and careers when they complete high school.”
The state will administer the Smarter Balanced assessment once a year, as part of year-end testing in the spring, Murphy said. Districts will have the option of using Smarter Balanced assessments at other times in the school year, but he does not expect many, if any, to so next year. The 2014-15 school year “will be a year of transition,” he said.
Murphy said additional rounds of testing would not be cost districts any more because multiple testing kits will be included in the contract package the state is now negotiating with its vendors. Because contracts have not been finalized, Murphy said he did not know how much the state would be spending on Smarter Balanced assessments, only that “the cost is not higher than DCAS.”
The summary report presented to the State Board of Education will be available on the Department of Education website. The information includes summary reports at the state, district and school levels, subgroup data and two-year trends.
Parent summary score reports will be mailed next week, and districts will soon receive detailed reviews of their overall and individual school scores, Touchette said.
In August, the State Board of Education will receive a more detailed analysis of achievement gap findings from this year’s DCAS results, he said.