LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas students as a group showed gains on most sections of the 2010 Stanford Achievement Test, topping the national average for math at each of the tested grades and doing the same on the reading sections in all but two grades.
“The news is something to shout about,” Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said about the Stanford results on the state Department of Education’s website.
Kimbrell congratulated the state’s teachers for what he said were across-the-board gains. He said the improvements on the nationally standardized exams help validate the student-achievement gains made on the Arkansas Benchmark Exams.
The Stanford and Benchmark tests were administered to public school students in traditional and charter schools in April. Both kinds of tests are required by Arkansas law.
The Benchmark Exams, as well as the state’s End of Course exams in algebra I, geometry and biology, are a measure of students’ mastery of the skills and concepts that Arkansas teachers say students should know.
Results from Benchmark and Stanford exams were released this month by the state. The End-of-Course results will be released the week of July 6, Education Department spokesman Julie Johnson Thompson said Friday.
Results from the Benchmark and End-of-Course exams are used to design remediation plans for students who score below grade level on the tests. The results also are used to determine if a school is failing to meet state minimum achievement standards for all its students, including subpopulations based on race and income.
Schools that don’t meet the standards must pay for tutoring and can face state demands for changes in curriculum, the principal or the faculty. The schools also may be required to employ improvement specialists or contract with school-improvement consulting companies.
The Stanford test, 10th edition, has been used to compare the achievement levels of Arkansas students, schools and school districts with a national sample of students who took the same test. A student who scores at the 75th percentile on a Stanford test did better than 75 percent of the students who took the same test.
The Stanford tests are not based directly on Arkansas’ academic standards and, as a rule, the state and school districts don’t tie any penalties to the results.
However, the test results can be used in a variety of ways, such as assessing a school’s curriculum for gaps in instruction. Also, at the eStem Public Charter elementary, middle and high schools, for example, the Stanford results are one factor in calculating employee bonuses.
The state math results ranged this year from the 51st percentile in first grade to the 74th percentile in eighth grade. In 2009, that range was 49th percentile in first grade to the 68th percentile in fourth grade.
The state reading results this year ranged from 42ndpercentile in first and second grades to the 72nd percentile in fourth grade.
The state results were lowest in the language-arts category. Arkansas students averaged at the 37th percentile in third grade to the 54th percentile in seventh grade.
The Little Rock district, the state’s largest school system, showed gains of as many as 15 percentile points in reading and 12 percentile points in math between 2009 and 2010, frequently surpassing the 50th percentile - the national average - but remaining below the state averages.
The math results ranged from the 32nd percentile in first grade to 62nd percentile for Little Rock eighth-graders. Little Rock eighth-graders scored 12 percentile points lower last year, at the 50th percentile.
In reading, Little Rock students averaged at the 31stpercentile in second grade to the 64th percentile in fourth grade. In fifth grade, students improved 15 percentile points compared with last year, going from the 39th to the 54th percentile. The same increase occurred in the eighth grade, as well.
In language arts, Little Rock first- and second-graders scored among the bottom third in the nation, but the percentile rankings climbed in the upper grades.
The 2010 results for charter schools in Pulaski County ran the gamut. Percentiles were in the single digits and teens at Dreamland Academy in southwest Little Rock - which targets high-need students - and ranged to the 80th percentile or greater in some grades at the Lisa Academy in west Little Rock - which emphasizes math and science.
Scott Smith, executive director of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, said Friday that his organization recently hired the state’s deputy associate director for assessment, Ellen Treadway, as assistant director of teaching and learning. The center, which supports member charter schools and rural traditional public schools, also has plans to hire another person with expertise in curriculum and instruction.
The center’s employees will work to provide charter and rural schools with the expertise that larger schools and districts with greater financial resources can provide to their employees by hiring companies such as America’s Choice, JBHM Education Group and Elbow-2-Elbow, Smith said.
“We know that if we have schools that are not performing then we need to start making some adjustments or changes out there,” Smithsaid.
This is the last year that Arkansas will use the Stanford test. The publisher of the test, Harcourt Assessment, was purchased by the Pearson education resource company. Pearson informed Arkansas that the company couldn’t afford to continue service to Arkansas under theexisting contract.
State officials put out a request for proposals from testing companies and selected the companies that offered the lowest cost, Questar Assessment Inc., and Data Recognition Corp., the users of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Arkansas last used the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in 2007.
Front Section, Pages 14 on 06/27/2010