Mixed test results for city schools

Charlottesville School Board members on Thursday saw that progress is being made in overall student achievement, but said there’s plenty of work to be done.

An extensive report on Advanced Placement, SAT and Standards of Learning test scores was presented to the board during its work session.

Harley Miles, supervisor of assessment and technical services for Charlottesville schools, said typically the division’s test scores are above state and national averages. For the 2008 graduation class, the average verbal, math and writing scores on the SAT were 536, 516 and 531, respectively.

But numbers have been on the decline. On the verbal exam, the average score was the lowest in 10 years. Math also declined to 516 after reaching a high of 543 in 2002. The writing score, at 531, is the division’s lowest since the test was implemented in 2006.

Mean scores on the 2008 SAT show wide achievement and participation gaps between white and black students in Charlottesville. The mean scores for verbal, math and writing for white students were 613, 588 and 598, respectively, compared with 416, 399 and 433 for black students. An average of 69.8 percent of white students enrolled in high school between 2006 and 2008 took the SAT. For black students, it was 38.2 percent.

However, some of the gaps are beginning to close. On SOL exams, Miles said, black students now have pass rates 20 percentage points higher than three years ago.

“Is it where we want to be?” Miles asked. “No, but the progress is there.”

For AP tests this year, 190 students took 493 exams in 23 different subjects, the most the division has offered. Eighty-six percent of students received a 3 or higher.

The SOL pass rates are all-inclusive for students — making no exclusions based on transfers or language proficiency — and do not represent Adequate Yearly Progress benchmarks designated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Only twice did SOL pass rates exceed more than 90 percent in the division last year — the fourth-grade SOL reading test and the seventh-grade U.S. History II exam had 90.2 percent and 96.5 percent of students pass. The same held true for pass rates below 70 percent, which occurred in sixth-grade math and eighth-grade reading assessments. For other exams across grade levels, pass rates hovered between 70 and 89 percent.

Board members said the testing data is helpful in determining areas where students may need more intervention. Board member Juandiego Wade said though it may be too optimistic, he hoped the data would help identify trends in specific problems students are having.

“I feel like we should be able to at some point address each student specifically,” Wade said.

Superintendent Rosa Atkins said though the division tries to address every student’s needs, data can only provide so much information.

“I don’t know that we will ever be able to get a set of test data that will tell us what’s going on with a student with 100 percent certainty,” Atkins said.

She said the division already has numerous intervention programs at each of its nine schools, and that the administration is beginning to create an evaluation process to determine which are best contributing to high student achievement.

“What’s most important is best practices,” said Atkins, referring to the intervention programs.

Board members said it would help student achievement to find which programs are the best and weed out the ones that may not be working as well.

“We’ve had some of the programs for decades and some of the disparities for decades,” said School Board member Colette Blount.

Board member Kathleen Galvin agreed.

“Clearly something is clicking for some of our schools,” she said, adding that those programs should be replicated across the division.