Post by Moses on May 12, 2004 19:02:08 GMT -5
LEAP Results Fall Short of Vow
Less than a month into his tenure as superintendent of New Orleans schools, Tony Amato made a bold promise:
In spring 2004, New Orleans public schools would "make the biggest leap on the LEAP" of any Louisiana school system, Amato said at his first meeting with state education officials. "Write it down and hold me to it."
Since then, Amato has confidently reiterated his vow to legislators, business leaders and eager new teachers. He's made it a mantra. As recently as February, Amato remained confident that the 2004 Louisiana Educational Assessment Program test scores would reveal dramatic gains.
It was a promise easier made than delivered, however. Preliminary test scores released by the state Education Department on Friday show that New Orleans public school students made some strides but were far short of Amato's prediction.
Like most statistics, standardized test scores can be translated in dozens of ways, but no matter how the 2004 LEAP results are sliced and diced, New Orleans public school students did not outpace the rest of the state.
In fourth grade, where most of the state stumbled this year, New Orleans public schools increased failure rates on both the math and English sections of the test. Math failures increased in 59 of 66 school districts in Louisiana; 55 saw more English failures.
Although the increases in failure rates were small -- a 2 percentage-point gain in fourth-grade math and 1 percentage-point gain in English -- New Orleans' failure rates were already substantial. Thirty-five percent of the district's 6,600 fourth-graders failed English and 43 percent failed math, according to the scores.
At the eighth-grade level, the district fared better, ranking among the state's top 10 districts in slashing failure rates and boosting ranks of students at or above the "basic" achievement level on the math section of the test. Basic is the middle of five achievement levels set by the state.
One percent fewer eighth-graders failed the English section of the test, and 11 percent fewer failed the math portion.
Eighth-graders must earn scores of "approaching basic" or better to secure promotion to the ninth grade, but schools are under increasing pressure to pull students up to the basic level and must get all students above that bar by 2009 for promotion. For the first time, fourth-graders this year had to achieve at least basic on either math or English, and at least approaching basic on the other to be promoted.
New Orleans 10th-graders followed the same trend as eighth-graders, cutting failure rates and increasing the percentages of sophomores who scored basic or better.
The English passage rate was up by 7 percentage points, and math was up 5 percentage points.
Amato did not directly respond to the scores, saying he and other school officials were still sifting through the statistics.
"Right now it's still just a bunch of numbers to us," he said Monday.
Yolanda Williams, the district's accountability coordinator, confirmed that New Orleans did not best the state's school systems in any categories. One explanation could be the district's sheer size, she said.
With 66,000 students, New Orleans is the state's largest public school system and must pull more students over LEAP-test passing bars to make a dent in its failure rates. Indeed, many of the districts that topped New Orleans in cutting failures were small parishes.
Williams said the results of state tests echo the trends she was seeing in results from LEAP-like quarterly exams Amato introduced at elementary and middle schools this year.
But Williams said she and other officials are far from drawing any conclusions from the test results.
"We're still in the process of disaggregating the data so that we can answer those types of questions," she said. "There are many programs going on at the schools, and we don't want to attribute something to one program and then have to take that back."
. . . . . . .
Aesha Rasheed can be reached at arasheed@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3378.
— Aesha Rasheed
Times-Picayune
2004-05-12
www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1084354200141800.xml
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Less than a month into his tenure as superintendent of New Orleans schools, Tony Amato made a bold promise:
In spring 2004, New Orleans public schools would "make the biggest leap on the LEAP" of any Louisiana school system, Amato said at his first meeting with state education officials. "Write it down and hold me to it."
Since then, Amato has confidently reiterated his vow to legislators, business leaders and eager new teachers. He's made it a mantra. As recently as February, Amato remained confident that the 2004 Louisiana Educational Assessment Program test scores would reveal dramatic gains.
It was a promise easier made than delivered, however. Preliminary test scores released by the state Education Department on Friday show that New Orleans public school students made some strides but were far short of Amato's prediction.
Like most statistics, standardized test scores can be translated in dozens of ways, but no matter how the 2004 LEAP results are sliced and diced, New Orleans public school students did not outpace the rest of the state.
In fourth grade, where most of the state stumbled this year, New Orleans public schools increased failure rates on both the math and English sections of the test. Math failures increased in 59 of 66 school districts in Louisiana; 55 saw more English failures.
Although the increases in failure rates were small -- a 2 percentage-point gain in fourth-grade math and 1 percentage-point gain in English -- New Orleans' failure rates were already substantial. Thirty-five percent of the district's 6,600 fourth-graders failed English and 43 percent failed math, according to the scores.
At the eighth-grade level, the district fared better, ranking among the state's top 10 districts in slashing failure rates and boosting ranks of students at or above the "basic" achievement level on the math section of the test. Basic is the middle of five achievement levels set by the state.
One percent fewer eighth-graders failed the English section of the test, and 11 percent fewer failed the math portion.
Eighth-graders must earn scores of "approaching basic" or better to secure promotion to the ninth grade, but schools are under increasing pressure to pull students up to the basic level and must get all students above that bar by 2009 for promotion. For the first time, fourth-graders this year had to achieve at least basic on either math or English, and at least approaching basic on the other to be promoted.
New Orleans 10th-graders followed the same trend as eighth-graders, cutting failure rates and increasing the percentages of sophomores who scored basic or better.
The English passage rate was up by 7 percentage points, and math was up 5 percentage points.
Amato did not directly respond to the scores, saying he and other school officials were still sifting through the statistics.
"Right now it's still just a bunch of numbers to us," he said Monday.
Yolanda Williams, the district's accountability coordinator, confirmed that New Orleans did not best the state's school systems in any categories. One explanation could be the district's sheer size, she said.
With 66,000 students, New Orleans is the state's largest public school system and must pull more students over LEAP-test passing bars to make a dent in its failure rates. Indeed, many of the districts that topped New Orleans in cutting failures were small parishes.
Williams said the results of state tests echo the trends she was seeing in results from LEAP-like quarterly exams Amato introduced at elementary and middle schools this year.
But Williams said she and other officials are far from drawing any conclusions from the test results.
"We're still in the process of disaggregating the data so that we can answer those types of questions," she said. "There are many programs going on at the schools, and we don't want to attribute something to one program and then have to take that back."
. . . . . . .
Aesha Rasheed can be reached at arasheed@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3378.
— Aesha Rasheed
Times-Picayune
2004-05-12
www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1084354200141800.xml
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