by Mary Wilson
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)
released statewide Annual Performance (APR) Reports last week, providing
districts with data and insight into how they are performing against state
standards. The information was released publicly at 12:01 a.m. on the day of
the Grandview School District’s Board of Education meeting, giving staff just a
few hours to prepare to present the information to its governing body on
Thursday, October 17.
“In the past, we were all given a percentage and the
districts were all ranked,” said Superintendent Dr. Kenny Rodrequez. “We were
told what that percentage was and we went through a variety of things to talk
about how those points were calculated. Hearing from different superintendents
in different districts about how the test was changed several times, that
number became less useful.”
This year, DESE has removed that overall percentage score
for districts. In the past, the Grandview School District released their
overall score as well as the scores for each individual school.
“I felt like if I had done that, it probably would have
given even more confusion than clarity,” said Rodrequez. “It gives us an
opportunity to show what the scores look like, what our performance actually
is, and how that compares from previous years, though it won’t be about the
overall score.”
Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Dr.
Joana King said that getting past the fact that there’s not a percentage point
to grade them, she feels as though the latest data provides more valuable
information to the district.
“We can see exactly where we are and see exactly what our
achievements are in each area,” said King.
The districts in the state are evaluated on five standards:
academic achievement, subgroup achievement, college and career readiness,
attendance and graduation rates. These are the same standards DESE has used in
recent years for performance data.
“Last year, 90.2% of the points were earned in our district,
and it was very easy for people to rank us, even though there really isn’t a
true correlation between districts,” said Scott Sisemore, Grandview’s director
of instructional technology. “What was released this year is a little more
chaotic.”
In order to make sense of the chaos, Sisemore indicated that
DESE has issued growth expectation, status expectation and progress
expectations, using the same formulas as in the past. Growth indicates change
in achievement scores in students over time. Status expectation is the status
that reflects the measurement of the school’s level of achievement based upon a
three-year average. Progress indicates the measurement of annual improvement on
state assessments.
“The three-year average is actually the easiest way for us
to compare where we are to the previous years,” said Sisemore.
In academic achievement, the district is exceeding; while in
mathematics, the district is not currently meeting the measures according to
the state. However, with the information based on the three-year average, DESE
states that a comparison of proficiency rates across years is not advisable.
The assessments in 2018 and 2019 are comparable, while the test administered in
2017 was not.
“Because the 2017 assessment was different than what we took
in 2018, you’ll notice a pretty big difference in scores,” said Sisemore. “It
looks like we dropped quite a bit, but it was actually completely different
assessments and the state is saying we cannot compare the two.”
This makes the three-year average that DESE has calculated
skewed. The best way for districts across the state to determine how they are
doing is to only look at the 2018 and 2019 data. Grandview shows a slight
increase in achievement in ELA (English language arts) between 2018 and 2019,
with about one percentage point of students who are scoring in proficient and
advanced. In mathematics, the district shows a moderate increase in achievement.
“This is certainly not something that we are celebrating,
but it is a positive indicator that we see some growth in math,” said Sisemore.
“While we are still below the state average, we have made a little bit of
improvement over the year.”
Subgroup achievement includes the district’s traditionally
underserved students, including those with individualized education plans
(IEP), free and reduced lunch rates, English language learners (ELL) and
minority students. These students are all lumped together to measure their
performance against the district. Sisemore said that their APR was very similar
to that of the district’s.
“Our ELL students are actually out-performing the district,”
said King. “A lot will say that they will not be able to perform as well as
everyone else, and we are proving that wrong.”
The standards in college and career readiness have not
changed. The district shows positive trends in the area of advanced placement
classes, as the opportunities for students to take dual-credit courses has
increased. Sisemore said that they should see results in college and career
readiness continue to rise moving forward.
According to Sisemore, attendance is a concern for the
district. In 2018, the district was at 86.1% for attendance, and in 2019, that
percentage dropped to 83.3%. This decrease has been steady for the last few
years. The state standard is 90% of students attending school 90% of the time. School
principals are working to implement different incentives across the district to
help increase the number of students in class.
The state calculates a four, five and seven-year graduation
rate, though Sisemore says the most important rate to look at is the four-year
rate. This is the number of students who should have been seniors last year
that graduated. In 2018, the district’s graduation rate was at 86%. In 2019,
the rate increased slightly to 86.4%. Although Sisemore said that this is not
what the district wants, the state shows Grandview on-track in comparison to
other districts.
“How do we continue to improve year after year when things
continue to change for us? Now we finally have two consecutive years of the
exact same test results to be able to show,” said Rodrequez. “We learned a lot
last year. But, we got the results last year in February, and then our students
took another test in April. We’re still learning a lot about the standards, but
we’re very pleased that we now have two years, and this year will finally be
the third year in a row that we can start measuring. We actually have an entire
year to learn from the information that we received.”
The 2019 APR will be complete upon the release of science data on November 23, which was not available last week. Statewide, while data in English language arts and mathematics remained fairly stable between the 2018 and 2019 data, four and five-year graduation rates for nearly all subgroups continued to see an increase. Gaps continued to close specifically with English learners in academics, continuing a trend of recent years with increased scores for that demographic.