By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
A year ago, when the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction issued its first-ever school report cards, the Burlington Area School District fell mainly in the area of meeting expectations.
This year, the majority of the district has stepped up one notch, with five of the seven schools exceeding expectations and one falling just a tenth of a point short of that mark.
As a district, BASD received an overall accountability score and rating of 74.3 – a mark that is classified as “exceeding expectations.”
Scores are from zero to 100 on the table, with 83-100 “significantly exceeding expectations,” 73-82.9 “exceeding expectations,” and 63-72.9 “meeting expectations.”
“There is a file that shows you exactly where you fell,” said BASD Assistant Superintendent Connie Zinnen. “The majority of the schools were in the top third of the state.”
So were the majority of the BASD schools. Lyons Center Elementary School (82.6), Dyer Intermediate School (82.0) and Winkler Elementary (81.7) topped the district scores, while Burlington High School came in at 74.6 and Cooper Elementary at 74.1. All of those schools were rated as exceeding expectations.
Waller Elementary School came in at 71.0, while Karcher Middle School was at 72.9 – both meeting expectations.
“We’re very proud of all the hard work that our teachers and aides and principals have been putting into educating and into the children,” said BASD Superintendent Peter Smet. “Our Roadmap for Instructional Excellence that we’ve been following has put us on the path.”
How it works
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.
Taking a look at the overall district scores – available for the first time this year – only nine districts in the state significantly exceeded expectations, while 134 district (about 1/3) exceeded expectations.
Another 269 districts met expectations, while 10 district met few expectations. The only district failing to meet expectations was Milwaukee Public Schools, and Norris School District was not rated. The 2012-13 report cards are based on data for 2,111 schools, with 1,910 receiving ratings.
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); and
• 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 testing component has relied on the Wisconsin Knowledge Concepts Exam (WKCE) so far, new assessments will be used in 2014-15 – the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium for grades 3-8 and the ACT suite in the high school.
It’s elementary
The BASD elementary schools had the best overall ratings not only within the district, but some of the highest in the area.
Looking at graded schools or grade school districts in the area, Lyons, Dyer and Winkler topped the ratings. Waterford Graded came in at 79.6 as the closest school to those three, while Burlington’s five graded schools (Lyons, Dyer, Winkler, Cooper and Waller) averaged to a rating of 78.3.
What’s more, almost all of the elementary schools made strides forward. While Winkler hit a score of 84.4 last year and dropped to 81.7 this year, the number is still just 1.3 below the “significantly exceeds expectations” rating.
Lyons, meanwhile, jumped from a 69.8 rating to 82.6, Dyer from 75.8 to 82.0 and Waller from 69.9 to 71.0.
Cooper Elementary also experienced a slight drop from 74.6 to 74.1.
Zinnen cautioned reading too much into any given score at any school, saying class makeup differs from year to year, and some schools have other factors coming into play.
For example, Waller may have had the lowest of the BASD elementary school scores, but has 61.9 percent of its school population economically disadvantaged and 22.6 percent with limited English proficiency.
“There are many variables,” said Zinnen. “You have to be careful making judgments.”
Next step up
At Karcher Middle School, the score improved from 68.2 to 72.9 – just one-tenth of a point short of the “exceeds expectations” range.
Karcher also had the best “closing gaps” score among district schools, meaning the gap between regular students or special education students, non-English speaking vs, English speaking, economically disadvantaged or not, or even boys vs. girls, said Zinnen.
Karcher earned a closing gaps score of 77.5 of a possible 100 – 13.0 points above the state average for grades 7-8.
At the high school level, BHS improved by four points from last year – 70.6 to 74.6. For on-track and postsecondary readiness – a point of emphasis at BHS – the score was 87.2 of a possible 100.
According to the report card, the graduation rate was 75.6 of a possible 80, while ACT participation was 11.6 of 20.
BHS Principal Eric Burling said last week that the goal is to get as many students as possible taking the ACT test – or at least the ACT Work Keys (an alternative for non-college bound students).
Looking ahead
Smet said last year the district would have to take a wait-and-see approach with the state report cards.
Among the question marks raised was that the report cards use a single method of assessment – the WKCEs. Both Zinnen and Smet wanted to see multiple measures used.
But both liked the fact that the report cards allowed for student growth on tests, as well as the closing the gaps measures.
Last year, the district’s closing gaps scores were mostly low – as low as 50 at Lyons Center.
This year, however, the district’s overall closing gaps mark was at 71.9. This time, Lyons Center had the high mark – 84.7 – while the lowest was 52.0 at Cooper.
And while both Zinnen and Smet expressed pride in the teaching staffs, the students and all others involved with the process, they left room for improvement.
“There’s always areas we need to work on improving,” said Smet, adding that district staff would continue to study the data and see what to improve.
Note: Information in this story was taken from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction news release on the school report cards, as well as the DPI’s report cards. A link to that information can be found by clicking here.
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