Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home Charter School received a rating of “outstanding” in school report cards released earlier this month for the 2010-11 school year, while all other Sweet Home schools were ranked satisfactory.
The elementary schools – Foster, Hawthorne, Oak Heights, Crawfordsville and Holley, were all near the threshold for an outstanding rating.
The Oregon Department of Education released the report cards on Oct. 6.
“For the elementary schools, the biggest issue, to be honest, was the change in cut scores in math,” said district Curriculum Director Tim Porter. Cut scores are the scores a student must achieve on assessment tests to meet or exceed the standard.
Fewer students are meeting or exceeding the standard this year, Porter said. Oregon decided to look at high-performing states and international benchmarks and match standards and increased math standards for the 2010-11 school year.
The lower the grade, the higher the increase in the cut scores, Porter said. In high school, the cut scores didn’t change at all.
At the low end, the third grade, the cut scores were quite a bit lower than other states and international benchmarks, he said.
The change means fewer schools met the criteria for outstanding achievement, Porter said, and the elementary schools were barely below the numbers they needed for outstanding achievement and an overall outstanding rating.
At Holley, for instance, the achievement index was 89.5, Porter said. The school required a 90 to be rated outstanding.
At the high school, it would be all but impossible to go backward because testing changed from sophomores to juniors last year, Porter said. Everyone improved as a result, so the state changed the improvement index underlying the report card’s rating.
The Oregon Department of Education picked a percentage of schools, the highest-improving schools, for an outstanding rating on improvement at the high school level, Porter said. Essentially, the ODE rated schools on a bell curve this year instead of specific benchmarks.
“It’s frustrating for teachers,” Porter said. “They changed the target, but you don’t know they changed the target.”
The high school had a significant improvement in reading, with the index in the subject increasing from 63.3 to 82.4, Porter said. The math index increased from 55.4 to 63.9.
That rendered a higher improvement index score than last year, a 5.7, Porter said. To receive an outstanding rating in improvement for 2010-11, the school needed to score at least 7 on the index. Last year, the high school only needed a 5.0 on the improvement index to reach outstanding. Last year’s improvement index was 7.1.
While the district improved, it can always improve more, Porter said. “Am I happy with the improvement we have? Yes I am. I think teachers in our district do a great job meeting the standards and make sure students being as successful as they can.”
This year’s ratings do not reflect a decline in quality but an increase in the standard, Porter said.
The Sweet Home Charter School achieved its score by increasing the number of students meeting or exceeding the standard, Porter said.
Four schools failed to meet adequate yearly progress, which is a federal assessment of how schools did compared to their state’s standards.
Failing to meet adequate yearly progress were Sweet Home High School, Sweet Home Junior High, Foster Elementary School and Oak Heights Elementary School.
This is the first year elementary schools failed to meet the adequate yearly progress requirement, Porter said.
The high school missed the mark in math with students with disabilities, Porter said. The high school improved about 5 percent, but the AYP goal was 8 percent.
The junior high missed the mark in reading with students with disabilities.
Because of the changes in cut scores, Foster missed the target in math with economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities, and Oak Heights missed it in math for students with disabilities.
“The one thing I really want to get across and not get lost in statistics: The teachers are doing a great job,” Porter said. Students are improving and meeting higher standards every year.
This school year, 2011-12, the cut scores in reading will change similar to math, Porter said. Science cut scores change a little.
To help meet the higher standards, the district has a lot of professional development, and the professional learning communities concept has been implemented districtwide, Porter said. The PLC concept is in its second year at the high school.
The PLC process uses real data from the classroom to find out what is or is not working with students. Teachers analyze the data and can use it to help improve student learning.
“In my years in education (20), it is the most powerful system for change that I have seen,” Porter said. The PLCs ask four questions:
n What do the schools want students to know?
n How do they know when they know it?
n What do the schools do with the students who are not getting it?
n What do the schools do with the students who are getting it?
It is not a program generally speaking but rather a continuous improvement model, Porter said. He believes the district has the right people in the right positions to become even better.
“I’m positive that we’re headed in the right direction in this district and we want to get better,” he said.