After State Test Results, Changes for Middle School Students

Following , students in the will be getting a new approach this school year, one that will alter the way teachers and faculty handle reading and writing assignments in the building.

While students’ results tend to drop off in middle school only to rise again in high school, middle school principal Mark Barth made his view clear Sept. 1 at during the meeting of the .

“We felt that the rigor – particularly of the eighth grade exam – was a reach,” he said. “We thought it was a difficult exam. But our kids need to perform well even on a difficult exam.”

The middle school has prepared students for the exam by first examining their work and data and made corrections during the school year. A practice exam was given early in the year to identify weaker skills and add instruction to help students with development. Assessments were developed in all grades – sixth, seven and eighth – in each content area with the state tests in mind “so that they even looked the way the state assessment would so that students would be prepared,” Barth said. Students were also given “targeted” assignments over vacations and were offered Saturday support classes.

“The results were less than stellar,” Barth said. “We were all disappointed (but) to say ‘disappointed’ really doesn’t capture it.”

Besides the level of difficulty, other changes to the state exam involved the elimination of an editing piece from the third and fifth grade tests. This year will also be the last in their current form as the tests will look like common core assessments in 2012-13.

“If they’re giving exams that aren’t testing what we are going to test in 2 years, this next exam coming up, what’s the purpose of it?” Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler said. “We knew these next 3 years of assessments were not going to be good because they’re building towards a new assessment. It’s not going to perfect the first year.”

The superintendent imagined that it would take three or 4 years to obtain enough data to find out if the numbers are reliable.

One exam the district deems credible is the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), which is given to students in grades five, six and seven. Teachers in grades six and seven received training for the exam on September 9. The advantage of the NWEA is that it can build an academic profile for every student so that teachers can differentiate and provide support to students. Another advantage of the 2 day test given in spring is results can be in teachers’ hands by September.

“It’s to our benefit to talk about ,” he emphasized. “We need multiple measures. We’re looking at five or six different things and in totality those five or six things will define whether or not we’re a successful district.” Such measurements would include SAT exams, advanced placement (AP) exams, Regents results, college admission rates as well as graduation and dropout rates.

“We have a lot of indicators of a school of excellence and these test scores certainly don’t capture everything that we do in terms of what we think is really good schooling,” Barth said.

In preparation for the 2011-12 school year, the middle school faculty is going to make some “radical changes” including a common core assessment, aligning it to several standards, increase non-fiction reading (which research indicates helps students perform well on state assessments), increase the “shared” reading level which would be on grade level or higher and look for inference and active listening skills and teach “author’s craft,” or how authors gather information before they write.

“We can stretch and push our kids,” Barth said. 

The building is also adding a new literary coach position, writers workshops which will deal with non-fiction persuasive informational research and add more timed tasks so students become accustomed to writing on demand.

“We want to give the kids the experience of a timed activity so they need to perform in that way,” Barth said.

An instructional support team (IST) will also become involved where teams of teachers develop strategies to assist the student and parents are also required to attend the meetings. “It’s a real partnership,” Barth said.

“The real trick here is engaging kids in stuff they shy away from,” Dr. Nagler said. “When you don’t do something well you’re not running to do it.”

Several years ago the middle school developed a class schedule that offered reading at the same time for a grade “to perform homogeneously.” Students of different abilities were able to move into different groups during this common time without interrupting the rest of their schedule. To go along with this, faculty are also developing an “intervention block” for students in grades five through seven where students would get appropriate intervention services such as ELA, math or enrichment courses. These courses would always be focused on reading and writing, however.

“Last year we offered gifted services for an hour a week,” Barth said. “This year it will be four hours a week (and) for the first time it will not be a pullout program. We think this year is going to be a watershed moment for us.”

The middle school has also incorporated the iPad and use of the eSpark program, which helps identify problem areas and offers tutorials in problem subjects to students .

Barth said that while the math scores were “a little bit better,” he would like to see improvement and have an “everyday” math program teaching common applications for the subject.

A new report card for grades 5 and 6 will be sent out to parents that Barth believes “is comprehensive, particularly in the areas of ELA and math.” He added that there was an “inordinate” amount of staff development for the year including in areas of NWEA and technology.

“It’s a new beginning for us and we hope that the efforts that we make this year will yield results that show up in the paper a little bit better.”