Although meeting or exceeding expectations, local schools get varied ratings in state ‘report cards’
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff Writer
When Burlington Area School District Assistant Superintendent Connie Zinnen first presented the basics on the new state school report cards issued by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, she sounded cautious.
Zinnen admitted this week that the caution had less to do with how BASD actually performed and more to do with errors in the reporting system.
“I was just cautious because we had recognized errors in our initial reports. It’s hard to know the impact that correcting those errors would have,” said Zinnen. The state released the 2011-12 preliminary report cards Monday, with two-page summaries and 18-page detailed reports available for all public schools throughout the state.
All of BASD’s schools either met expectations, exceeded expectations or, in the case of one school, significantly exceeded expectations.
The highest score among BASD schools came from Winkler Elementary, where the school scored 84.4 on the 100-point rating scale. The rest of the schools fell between 68.2 (meeting expectations) and 75.8 (exceeding expectations).
“I think we’re right where we thought we’d be,” said Zinnen. “We’re pleased, but we’re always striving to continually improve.”
Added BASD Superintendent Peter Smet, “Wherever a school is at – and we’re very proud of what some of our schools got – we want to strive to be better next year.”
Preliminary reports
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the school report cards provide an accountability score on a scale of zero to 100.
Score ranges place schools in one of five rating categories, from significantly exceeds expectations to fails to meet expectations.
In this pilot year, 68 schools in the state significantly exceeded expectations (with a rating of 83-100), 637 exceeded expectations (73-82.9 rating), 906 met expectations (63-72.9 rating), 190 met few expectations (53-62.9) and 76 failed to meet expectations (52.9 and below). Two hundred forty-one schools were not rated for one reason or another, though none in the area.
Priority area scores are weighted in a formula that also takes into account student engagement indicators. Those indicators are test participation, absenteeism, and dropout rates.
Priority areas are:
• Student achievement in reading and mathematics on statewide assessments using college and career-ready proficiency levels.
• Student growth in reading and mathematics, measured by year-to-year improvements in achievement.
• Closing gaps for reading and mathematics achievement and graduation, based on the performance of specific student groups (English-language learners, low-income students, students with disabilities, and students from racial or ethnic groups and their peers).
• On-track and postsecondary readiness, which uses graduation or attendance rates, third-grade reading achievement, eighth-grade mathematics achievement, and ACT participation and performance as predictors of college and career readiness.
While the state issued Monday’s information with the tag of “preliminary,” both Zinnen and Smet believe that all of Burlington’s scores should be accurate given the current conditions.
BASD requested some reporting errors be corrected earlier in October, and it appears that has been done. However, that doesn’t mean that guidelines can’t or won’t change.
“We’re not, because we believe our errors have been corrected,” said Zinnen. “Because this is the first time the state has embarked on this, they’ve also gotten feedback. They may believe that changes may need to be made in certain things.
“Whether the DPI decides to make any changes based on the feedback they get from districts … because it’s so new, we can’t predict whether changes will come about.”
BASD’s scores
While all of Burlington’s scores rated at meeting expectations or above, Winkler’s high mark was one of the top in Racine County, according to Smet.
However, Smet also stressed that all schools in the district were following what he considered to be the same formula for success.
“All our schools are following our Roadmap to Instruction Excellence,” Smet said. “We’re very happy with where Winkler finished, and we hope all the other schools will continue to improve.”
Winkler’s high score came, in part, due to not having a “closing the gaps” score – a factor which draws the scores down on most if not all schools. The reason is that most of Winkler’s students are classified as “white, not Hispanic” and only a small portion of the students are labeled as having disabilities or being economically disabled.
Most of Burlington’s scores in the “closing the gaps” area were below the state average – with the exception of Winkler, which didn’t have that score, and Dyer Intermediate.
“Winkler, because they don’t have a whole lot of diversity, they don’t have to try and close their gaps,” Smet explained.
Winkler also had a small student population – just 195 students. Smet said that in such a small sampling of students, a small handful of students can skew the scores both low and high.
That’s not saying Winkler didn’t perform well. Its student growth score – which measures growth by students on the Wisconsin Knowledge Concepts Exam – was 93.8 out of 100, and the school’s student achievement score was 71.2 out of 100 (above the 66.4 K-5 Wisconsin average).
Zinnen also made the point that teachers should be praised for their efforts and commitment to the roadmap.
“A large part of that is due to teachers,” Zinnen said.
Karcher Middle School had the lowest of the remaining scores with a 68.2. However, both Karcher and Burlington High School (with a 70.6 score) were impacted by lower-than-average WKCE scores.
Zinnen stressed that the evaluation uses just one single sitting of a test with a student.
“You have to be careful with anything that uses only one measure,” she explained.
That said, with BASD taking a different approach to its testing this year, she expects scores will improve – which will show up in the student growth portion of the report card.
“We believe they will,” Zinnen said. “We’re pretty positive that those are going to be better.”
Among the other BASD scores in the district:
• Cooper Elementary scored a 74.6, which exceeded expectations. The student achievement score was 72.3 out of a possible 100, well above the state average of 66.3, and the student growth score was 73.9.
The closing the gap score for Cooper was 63.3, compared to the state average of 65.7. And on the “on-track and postsecondary readiness” portion, Cooper scored 88.7.
• Lyons Center School scored 69.8, which met expectations. The school had a student achievement score of 72.3, a student growth score of 69.2, but a closing the gaps score of just 50.0 on a scale of 100. The school’s “on track” score was 87.6.
• Waller Elementary, which was recently named a Wisconsin School of Distinction for it’s success with low-income students, finished with a 69.9 score – a 61.5 student achievement score, a 76 student growth score, a 56.9 closing gaps score and an 85.1 on track score.
Waller is also the recipient of significant Title I aid because of the fact that 59.1 percent of the school’s students are deemed “economically disadvantaged.” As a result, the school has an extra reading specialist and has been using specially purchased iPads as part of the district’s “iPad Initiative.”
• Dyer Intermediate had the second-highest score among the BASD schools, with a 75.8 rating.
The school had a 63.9 student achievement score, but had a high student growth (77.7) and closing gaps (72.5) score. The school’s on track score was also the best in the district at 93.6.
• Karcher Middle School posted a 68.2 score – with low scores of student achievement (64.0) and student growth (49.7). However, Karcher had a closing the gaps score of 70.6, and an 88.6 on the on track score.
• Burlington High School’s score was 70.6, with a student achievement score of 64.8, a closing gaps score of 67.2 and an on track score of 84.5.
The school did not have a student growth score – and an average was not available for the state.
The future?
Whether or not the concept of the school report cards will work is something Smet is adopting a “wait and see” attitude toward.
“Time will tell,” Smet said. “We’ll see over time, is this accurately reflecting the quality of schools?
“I think there are some positive things about this,” he added, pointing to the student growth, and also closing the gaps between the haves and have-nots. “The only measure it’s using is the WKCE.
“I wish they would use multiple measures.”
The positive, of course, is that this system allows schools to show growth and percentage of students who are proficient – rather than just seeing a whole school fail because the “No Child Left Behind” initiative implemented an all-or-nothing scenario.
“By that measure, every school would have failed,” Smet said. “This is trying to implement some sort of growth model for schools and district.”
Note: Information in this story was taken from the Wisconsin DPI’s news release on the school reports, as well as the DPI’s report cards themselves.
Local schools rank
in the middle ground
While Burlington Area School District fared anywhere from about average to above average in the preliminary state school report cards issued by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Monday, it fell right in the middle of the pack among area schools.
Taking a look at elementary schools in the Waterford and Union Grove Area:
• In the elementary schools that feed into or are in Waterford, Washington-Caldwell had an overall score of 73.1, while Trailside Elementary in Waterford had an 82.7 score, Evergreen Elementary of Waterford a 76.5, and Woodfield Elementary a 79.0.
Significant of note in those scores is that all four schools reported scores in all of the four priority areas. Also significant is that all of the schools are either kindergarten through eighth or kindergarten through sixth grades.
Trailside’s score was boosted by a 79.5 student achievement score, as well as an 83.9 student growth and 77.7 closing gaps score – some of the highest in the area. Evergreen and Woodfield both survived low closing gaps scores – 55 for Evergreen and 57.8 for Woodfield – to post high averages.
• All three of the public schools that feed into Union Grove Union High School are through grade eight, which mean that the scores aren’t as separated as they would be either in Waterford or Burlington.
Union Grove elementary posted a 71.5 – with a 70.3 student achievement, 58.3 student growth and 67.3 closing gaps score, but an 89.9 on track score.
Yorkville, meanwhile, had a 73.1 overall score – 71.0 on the student achievement, 65 on the student growth, 66.1 on closing gaps and 90.5 on the on track score.
Raymond was the lowest scoring of the three schools with just a 69.0. The school had an on track score of 89.2, but a student achievement score of 67.1, a student growth score of 55.5 and a closing gaps score of 64.
• In comparing Waterford’s Fox River Middle School and Burlington’s Karcher Middle School, Fox River had a score of 75.6 compared to 68.2 by Karcher.
Fox River, like Karcher, had a low student growth score – 55.4 for Fox River compared to 49.7 for Karcher – but easily outdistanced Karcher in student achievement (78.1 to 64.0), closing gaps (78.2 to 70.6) and on track (90.8 to 88.6).
• Finally, in looking at the Southern Lakes Conference high school scores, Elkhorn Area High School ranked the highest, posting a score of 76.7, followed by Waterford (74.7), Lake Geneva Badger (73.9), Westosha Central (72.7), Wilmot Union (71.6), Burlington (70.6), Union Grove (68.6) and Delavan-Darien (58.7)
Delavan was the only one of the five schools to receive a five-point deduction – in the school’s case, for excessive absenteeism (above 13 percent). Otherwise, Delavan would have posted a score of 63.7 – which would have met the threshold of “meets expectations.”
Scores needed to be between 63-72.9 to meet expectations and 73-82.9 to exceed expectations.
Waterford scored highest of the eight schools in both student achievement (73 of 100) and on track (87.4), while Elkhorn had the high closing gaps score of 75.6).
None of the eight schools had a student growth score available.
-
-
-
-
-