County administrators: There’s always room for improvement on state testing

By Leslie N. Dees

September 03, 2009 02:16 pm

— There is one thing for certain amongst Attala County School administrators – There is always room for improvement on the Mississippi Department of Education state-wide testing.
High school students are tested on Algebra 1, U.S. History, Biology and English II as part of the Subject Area Testing Program.
Ethel High School Principal Roger “Dube” Hill said all in all their scores were pretty good.
The brightest spots, Hill said, were in U.S. History and Algebra I with 100 percent passing in the historical subject and 82.2 passing the math test.
While Biology scores went down slightly, Hill said they were still pleased.
English II test found 61.9 percent passing out of the 42 tested.
Hill said the English scores are just slightly below the state-wide mean score.
“We want to do better,” Hill said.
Seventh and eighth grade students are also tested on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, Second Edition in the areas of language arts and mathematics.
Hill said the math was the best out of the two areas.
Almost half of the seventh grade were on “proficient” level and in the eighth grade more than half were “proficient.”
Language arts is a different story.
Our weakest spot is seventh grade English, Hill said.
The results for seventh grade language arts are minimal, 27.3 percent; basic, 38.6; proficient, 34.1 and 0, advanced.
Historically, Hill said this is always the toughest spot due to transition from Greenlee Elementary to EHS.
In order to aid in the improvement of scores, Ethel uses programs, Achieve3000 and Read 180, to help build reading skills and comprehension as well as vocabulary in the seventh and eighth grades.
All county schools utilize the programs in grades 3-8.

McAdams
On the other side of the county, McAdams High School Principal Katie Jamison said students improved but there is always room for more improvement.
In U.S. History, MHS students passed by 100 percent.
However, Jamison said there is room for improvement in English II and Algebra I.
Jamison said the Algebra scores did increase over a year’s time. In 2008-2009, 54.8 percent passed and the previous year only 46.7 passed the tested area.
On the English II test, 35 percent passed and in Biology I 87.5 percent passed.
Jamison said the Biology 1 scores improved over last year.
She added that the MCT 2 test results were up from last year and she expects them to improve the next go-around.
Math and reading remediation plans are in place for students and there is a science reasoning class to help those with Biology 1, Jamison said.
In seventh grade language arts 8 percent, minimal, 28, basic; 60, proficient; and 4, advanced.
“We did improve but we aren’t where we need to be,” Jamison said. “We are becoming better.

Greenlee, Long Creek
Greenlee Elementary Principal Bryan Weaver said the best test results came from the third grade.
They looked pretty good, he said.
However, like other administrators, Weaver said there is always room for improvement.
Results for third grades in language arts were 19.5 percent, minimal; 36.6, basic; 34.1, proficient and 9.8, advanced. In math, they scored: 22, minimal; 43.9, basic; 26.8, proficient and 7.3, advanced.
Work is being done at Greenlee to get all scores up during the next testing cycle.
“We are already making adjustments,” Weaver said. “We are going to get them where they use to be.”
Over at Long Creek, Principal Dietrich Harmon said he was very proud of the fourth and fifth graders math scores and fourth and sixth graders language.
Seventy-two percent of fourth graders were either proficient or advanced in math.
Nearly half of the sixth graders were proficient in language arts.
One of the weaker spots was the third grade, Harmon said.
The third grade teachers now are departmentalizing their classroom with some focusing on language arts and others focusing on math.
“We are working very hard to get the test scores up,” he said. “We want our boys and girls to be successful.”
Complete test results for all school districts can be found at http://orshome.mde.k12.ms.us/ors/

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