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Here are the SOL stories from the Times-Dispatch. The actual data do not support the optimistic tone of these reports.
City's SOL test scores improve / Community High passes; 2 come close
Thursday, July 13, 2000
BY ROBIN FARMER
Times-Dispatch Staff WriterThe mood was upbeat at yesterday's Richmond School Board retreat as the district's Standards of Learning test scores showed
Richmond Community High School hit the state's eventual accreditation benchmark and two other schools -- Fox and Munford elementaries -- missed it by less than 2 percentage points.
Half of the city's 52 public schools had double-digit test-score gains, some 20 percentage points or more, in at least two core subjects on the high-stakes tests taken in third, fifth and eighth grades and in high school.
By 2006-07, when the program becomes fully effective, at least 70 percent of a school's pupils must pass the tests for the school to remain accredited.
Richmond's Superintendent Albert J. Williams said he is confident further progress will be made next year, predicting at least seven more schools will follow Community's lead.
Richmond Community High is a small, alternative high school that selects students with either strong grades or the potential to make them.
"Last year, we had [no passing schools]," Williams said. "It's the amount of growth we've had in all the schools that makes me extremely optimistic.
"We're much further along this year. The [instructional] plan is solid, and we have to stay the course and maintain the course. I'm looking for eight schools next year, with everyone else moving up."
Before adjourning the meeting for lunch, a smiling School Board Chairman Mark E. Emblidge said: "We've got an instructional model that is working."
Echoing Williams, Emblidge said teachers need to be thanked for the "really encouraging news."
During the three-day retreat, which ends tomorrow, board member R.M. "Reggie" Malone Sr. said about 24 percent of the schools had scores that regressed. That remark prompted member J. William Midkiff Jr. to say there's another way of looking at the data.
"Three-fourths of our schools have maintained or went up in scores. We have to acknowledge the efforts that came out this year," he said.
Schools with substantial test-score gains include Blackwell, Cary, Fox, Overby-Sheppard, Redd and Swansboro elementary schools; Chandler and Henderson middle schools; and Richmond Community and Open High schools.
Schools with scores that dropped significantly in two or more areas include Lee Elementary, which had shown strong gains last year, Broad Rock, Patrick Henry, Greene and Stuart elementaries and Huguenot High.
Overall, most gains in passing percentages were made at the middle schools. For example, 44.5 percent of pupils passed reading/research compared with 37.3 percent last year. The passing percentage for writing this year was 53.6 percent, up from 43.8 percent last year.
The biggest overall gains for elementary pupils were a 13 percentage-point gain in science for third-graders and a 16 percentage-point gain in math for fifth-graders. For high schoolers, there was a 7 percentage-point gain in geometry passing rates.
Much work remains to be done as the class of 2004 must pass six end-of-course SOL tests to graduate. in 2004. None of the regular high schools currently have scores close to meeting the benchmark. Accreditation also will depend on SOL test scores within a few years.
Subjects that continue to trouble many city students include reading and history. School officials say city schools have one of the state's highest concentration of poor students, and that presents many challenges.
Scores are expected to continue to climb as school officials get ready to launch a new reading initiative in September, which will call for every middle school teacher to teach reading daily.
Training has started.
During the retreat, board member Larry A. Olanrewaju questioned this approach.
"In our push to have reading across the curriculum, we will have people who don't have expertise. Do librarians and science teachers have this [expertise]?" he asked.
"We believe they do," answered Deborah Jewell-Sherman, associate superintendent.
Later, Williams said, "Many parents aren't reading teachers, either, and they become their child's first reading teacher."
Sep 09, 2000
Schools' SOL tactics pay off
But pupils still hit trouble spotsBY ROBIN FARMER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERPassing percentages for Richmond's suburban school districts on the Standards of Learning tests exceed the state averages on most of the core subjects except in the area of history.
And while Richmond Public School officials applauded double-digit gains in test scores earlier this summer, there was little gain in passing rates for English and math - two key subjects. The biggest gains in pass rates for the city school district were in science and computer technology.
Most of the improvements were due to hard work mixed with a high quotient of fun.
At Henrico's Baker Elementary School, using the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" game-show format helped the passing rate in history skyrocket from 27 percent to 86 percent. The gain was "just phenomenal," said Henrico Superintendent Mark Edwards. "We said. 'Guys, how did you do it?' They used cumulative assessments, testing each week not for coverage but student knowledge and field trips. They took every step to make it exciting, active learning."
Playing the popular game show allowed youngsters to sit in a special chair. There were flashing lights. Pupils even had lifelines.
"It was that type of creativity that created fun and learning," Edwards said. He's especially pleased since half of the pupils are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Low socioeconomic status tends to drag down standardized test scores, research shows.
Of Henrico's 58 schools, 35 - or 60 percent - have met the eventual accreditation standard, preliminary data show, he said.
Information on how many schools met the eventual accreditation mark of 70 percent has not been released by the state.
Henrico, like most school systems, still has lagging history scores. To help correct that, there will be more replication of what works. "Where we see individual schools that have great success in social studies, then we want to share that," Edwards said.
Richmond experienced a surge in its computer technology pass rate. Sixty-six percent of fifth-graders passed the test compared to 55 percent last year, while for eighth-graders the percentage jumped from 43 percent to 52 percent.
Superintendent Albert J. Williams credited the million dollars spent on computers in the past two years and said another million that will be spent this year. "We've increased our ratio of computers and that's been a big plus," he said.
Hanover posted some of its biggest gains in the area of math. Eighty-five percent of third-graders passed math this year compared to 78 percent last year. Fifth-grader pass rates were 79 percent this year, up from 61 percent last year. The high school algebra I passing rate for students jumped from 51 percent to 70 percent. It's jumped 40 points in three years.
"At the high school level we focused on class size," said Superintendent Stewart Roberson. "We established the expectation that algebra I classes should have no more than 17-to-1 ratio."
Hanover elementary and middle school pass rates are among the area's highest. "This surge in performance is a result of substantial focus, teamwork and commitment of resources," Roberson said. "The School Board and I are very proud of the manner by which teachers and the school district have addressed the challenges.''
Chesterfield's biggest gains were in the percentage of students who passed the fifth-grade math test and those who passed the high school world history II exam with jumps of 13.5 and 27.8 percentage points, respectively. Of the 27 tests Chesterfield administered, 21 were passed by at least 70 percent of the students who took them. The county missed that mark on U.S. history, algebra I and II and chemistry in high school and history in grades 3 and 5.
Chesterfield scored above state averages on all but one of the elementary and middle school tests. The grade five reading pass rate was 79.4 percent compared to the state average of 81.
Richmond pupils still struggle with reading and math. Less than half of third-graders passed the English tests. Less than half of fifth- and eight-graders passed reading or math tests. But, eighth-graders improved in math and made gains of at least 5 points in writing and reading.
As to the little gain in reading and math pass rates over the last three years, "that's something we have to [assess] as to why we are stagnant in those areas," Williams said. New initiatives are in place.
This year middle school pupils will have daily reading instruction and the elementary reading program has been refocused, Williams said.
Also, the school district is beginning its second year of allowing algebra I students up to two years to complete the course, he said. Three city schools met the eventual accreditation mark with the remainder accredited with warning.
In Chesterfield, high school scores were below the state average by more than a point in four areas: geometry, algebra II, U.S. history and chemistry. Last year world history II was the only high school exam below the state average.
In the spring, Chesterfield officials estimated that 20 of their schools might have met the accreditation mark but the state accreditation information has not been released. Superintendent Billy K. Cannaday said he would not speculate now if that number has changed.
Accreditation is not his main priority. "Our focus is on the student achievement," Cannaday said. "When we improve the students' performance, the [standards of accreditation] are going to take care of themselves. The state's model of accreditation assumes that having 70 percent of students in a school passing is OK.
"It's not OK for us," Cannaday said. "Having all our schools accredited but having 30 percent of our students who potentially can't graduate is not a comforting thought to me."
As a measure of the growth of the SOL scores that make Dr. Williams "extremely optimistic," here is a table of the dates when the extrapolated scores for Richmond reach the accreditation thresholds:
Subject Year 3 Eng 2027 3 Math 2014 3 Hist* 2001 3 Sci* 2001 5 Write 2001 5 RLR Never 5 Math 2005 5 Hist 2009 5 Sci Never 5 Compute 2001 EOC Write 2001 EOC RLR Never Alg I 2013 Geom 2016 Alg II 2013 US Hist 2062 Earth Sci 2006 Bio 2002 Chem 2066 *Accreditation level = 50 Thus, the scores in only eight of nineteen subjects extrapolate to meet the accreditation requirement on the average. Of course, average compliance is not good enough. ALL the schools must meet the requirement by 2007. At the present rate, we will not come even close.
Thus we see that Dr. Williams' optimism is not grounded in reality. Of course, if your job depended on improving these awful scores, you also would find reason for optimism. In contrast, if you are a taxpayer you probably should be wondering why we spend so much money for schools that do so badly.
In general, we can say that the Richmond scores are thirty points behind the statewide average, and increasing (where they are increasing) more slowly than the statewide average. Dr. Williams' spin about his "optimism" cannot change that. Indeed, as long as this synthetic "optimism" is the official line, it will indicate that the school system remains in denial.
The first step to improvement is to assess the problem. Richmond continues to deny that it has a problem. As a result, the Richmond schools continue to squander our tax money on a system that fails, and will continue to fail, to educate Richmond's children.
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Last updated 02/24/02
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