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District 9-R touts positive test scores

Bayfield results ‘mixed;’ Ignacio’s high school up

After five years of declining test scores Durango School District 9-R’s 4,200 students have “turned the corner” on the state’s all-important standardized test, Superintendent Dan Snowberger said.

In a measure of the percent of students who scored proficient or advanced on the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, or TCAP, the district gained 25 percent compared with last year versus the 2 percent gain from 2011 to 2012.

Test scores were released to the public Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Bayfield School District’s results were “a mixed bag,” Superintendent Troy Zabel said Wednesday. Bayfield students outperformed the state in reading but struggled in math, with third-, fourth-, sixth- and 10th-graders performing at or below state standards.

In Ignacio School District, high-schoolers had the biggest gains compared with the year before, while the scores of other students varied, a function of the district’s small size.

Statewide, 2013 TCAP scores stayed relatively flat compared with 2012 and haven’t budged much since 2008.

All of Colorado’s schools switched to the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program in 2012. The assessment is meant to serve as a bridge between the Colorado Student Assessment Program that tested the old academic standards and a new state test that will assess a new slate of academic standards that were rolled out in 2010. That new standardized test is expected to begin in 2015.

Durango’s teachers started teaching to the new standards in January, so Snowberger said he was encouraged that of 27 grade-level and subject-area combinations, the district improved in 14 areas compared with 2012. Last year, the district saw improvement in nine areas.

In Durango, every grade level was on par with or outperformed the state average in every subject area.

In analyzing its data, 9-R officials focus most on the progress of cohorts, or classes of students, as they move through the district. In reading, 9-R’s fifth-, sixth- and eighth-graders improved their scores compared with the year before by an average of 5 percentage points, while the performance of other grades declined or remained the same. Last year’s fifth- and seventh-graders saw big jumps in writing performance compared with the previous year, but ninth- and 10th-graders’ performance declined by almost the same amount. In math, the performance of all cohorts declined compared with their scores the previous year.

Despite recent gains, 9-R’s scores aren’t where they should be, Snowberger said. The district continues to struggle most with academic growth gaps – the gaps in performance among various groups of students such as minorities and those who are eligible for free and reduced lunch, and English learners.

With an aim to keep improving test scores, the district is implementing two assessment programs this year to help teachers gauge student performance on a daily basis and throughout the semester.

Bayfield School District is implementing its own changes based on struggling math scores, Zabel said. The district hired an elementary school math coach and started using computer programs to help students master certain concepts.

“We know math is an area our kids are definitely not growing the way they should be,” Zabel said.

In Ignacio, students struggled the most with test questions that required them to explain how they arrived at an answer, said Kathy Pokorney, the district’s curriculum director.

Performance among the district’s fourth-graders appeared to decline the most from the year before, but Pokorney said that’s because the third-grade assessment tests different standards than the fourth-grade test.

She also noted that the district’s students tended to score on the very high end or the very low end of a specific category. The vast majority of fourth-graders who scored unsatisfactory, for example, were just a few points away from making it into the partially proficient category.

She acknowledged that the district is not meeting state expectations regarding performance and adequate yearly progress.

“We could have been beating ourselves up (about it) a long time ago,” Pokorney said. Instead, “we’re about looking for what are we doing right and (figuring out) how do we make that grow,” she said.

ecowan@durangoherald.com



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