Local students show gains during school year

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Editor

As the state of Wisconsin transitions away from the Wisconsin Knowledge Concepts Exam and into a new state assessment test, the Burlington Area School District officials are ready to make the jump.

At Monday night’s Curriculum Committee meeting of the School Board, school improvement plans for all schools in the district were presented, along with scores from the WKCE and the results of the district’s Measures of Academic Progress or MAP testing.

In general, the district saw great improvements on the MAP testing scores from when they were first given in the fall to when the final assessments were given in the spring in grades K-8.

In addition, the district set school improvement goals and hit almost all of them by the spring.

The high school, in general, does not take the MAP tests. Instead, it has students take the ACT Suite of tests, which includes the PLAN, EXPLORE and ACT exams.

The district’s ACT scores will not be available until later in the summer. The school’s 10th graders do take the WKCE, and while the scores were above the state average, they tended to be about in the middle of the pack of the Southern Lakes Conference Schools.

For more on the WKCE scores, see the related story on page 6.

Here are the highlights of the discussions regarding the district’s testing results:

MAP testing

The district uses the MAP testing to track progress throughout the school year, said BASD Assistant Superintendent Connie Zinnen. The test is administered shortly after students arrive in the fall, then a second time, and finally in the spring to measure the gains made.

Students immediately know their scores, and the district receives its scores within 24 hours – compared to an eight-month wait with the WKCE scores.

The scores are measured by comparing with the curriculum scale in each grade area, and then BASD compares its scores with the national mean norm.

The further students get in grade level means the lower the gains on the scale. Students know more of the information, and there is less room to move up, said Zinnen.

In general, the district starts below the national mean norm in the fall, but improves to above the mean norm by the spring. Zinnen said the lower fall scores may have to do with the test being given within a few days of students entering the grade, compared with the testing being given later for the national mean norm.

As a result, the district will move the test back slightly this fall.

Zinnen also pointed out that the district was closing the gaps between regular students and those with disabilities, though the district does tend to perform above the state average in those areas.

Grades K-6

The district saw strong gains in its MAP scores in grades K-6, with all but one grade hitting its goal of being above the national norm by the spring.

Looking at the scores, kindergarten students went from a mean of 143.7 in the fall in reading to 164.8 in the spring, first grade from 164.5 to 186.3, second grade from 173.3 to 191.6, third grade from 187.3 to 199.8, fourth grade from 199.0 to 208.5, fifth grade from 203.3 to 212.8 and sixth grade from 209.6 to 217.9.

Those scores ranged from .5 to 7.1 above the national mean norm growth, and from 8.3 points to 21.8 points in district improvement.

The same held true for the district’s math scores, with improvement ranging from 9.9 points to 26.7 points, with all grade levels going above the national mean growth.

Language scores showed improvement across the board as well – between 7.1 and 19.4 points gained – but one grade level fell .9 of a point below the national mean growth (grade five).

Middle School

At the middle school level, the scores were closer to the national mean in the fall, and both grades improved to above the national mean in the spring in reading, math and language arts.

The district was closest to the national fall mean in language arts, with seventh graders coming in above the national mean (217.9 compared to 215.8) in the fall and eighth graders starting at 218.4 (compared to the national mean of 218.4).

By the spring, those scores had increased to 223.3 for seventh grade and 225.6 for eighth grade – 4.6 points and 4.3 points above the national mean, respectively.

High School

With the high school not participating in the MAP testing, BASD principal Eric Burling focused instead on the “tracking” of students into various classes.

Burling stressed that students were not being “pigeonholed” into various strata, but instead, placed in classes where they could best lead and take the courses they needed and wanted to take.

For example, there are three different tracks for both math and English, depending on the testing level students in grade eight.

The curriculum in these classes are then broken down to meet college readiness standards, with clear guidelines of how students need to learn to perform well on the ACT – the test now widely used for college admittance.

All BHS 11th graders will take the ACT next fall, as it is the new state evaluation test for high schoolers.

Those scores will not count for college admission, though Burling called it “a free practice test.” All students will also take the ACT WorkKeys, which helps determine proficiency at various jobs.