The retired PACT test for third through eighth graders had South Carolina students clearing a higher bar to “pass” than many other states.
But now, with 2009 PASS test data released this week, the overall percentage of Newberry County students who passed PASS still sits below statewide percentages, as last year’s PACT scores did.
In 2008 PACT data, the only place Newberry County surpassed the state’s overall pass rate was for fifth grade math. This year, no Newberry percentage tops the state average for combined grade pass rates.
Seventh grade social studies scores are a particularly sore spot: for Newberry, only 45.9 percent of seventh graders met standards on the end-of-the-year social studies exam.
“We’re attributing it
to being a phenomena of the test, of the differences in the (PACT and PASS) tests,” said Assistant Superintendent Cynthia Downs.
Newberry isn’t alone in its low social studies pass percentage.
The percentage of seventh graders who cleared the social studies bar is the lowest pass rate out of 30 areas for both Newberry and the state.
But, Newberry’s percentage of students who passed seventh grade social studies is 45.9 percent, while the state is nearly 15 percent higher at 60.2 percent.
State pass rates per grade level for each of the five subjects tested—writing, English, math, science and social studies—average roughly 10 percent higher than Newberry’s per grade level percentage.
But some individual schools in Newberry have higher pass percentages than statewide data, Downs points out.
Indeed, Boundary Street Elementary posted the highest pass percent for the entire district with 98.4 percent of fourth graders at the school passing the math portion of the test. Statewide, the fourth grade pass percentage for math is 76.8.
And true to custom, Little Mountain got high marks with five areas of passing percentages that top 90 percent: English language arts (grade 5 with 94.4 percent), math (grade 5 with 97.2 percent), science (grade 5 with 94.4 percent) and social studies (grade 4 with 94.7 percent and grade 8 with 94.4 percent).
The only other elementary school in the county with any grade-level numbers above a 90 percent pass rate is Boundary Street Elementary with its 98.4 percent.
For one, Little Mountain Principal Rudie Tarver says success comes with the school being part of a good community that gets involved, and teachers “who truly care about not only the education process, but for their students.”
Special classroom time at Little Mountain doesn’t hurt either.
When gifted and talented students leave class, and other students part for special education, the school has set aside a daily 45-minute “enrichment and remediation” time Little Mountain calls “Mountain minds time.”
The extra instruction boosts or “remediates” those that struggle, while “enriching” those who aren’t doing poorly in school, but want to go further in learning.
“That helps those that need it and helps advance the other students,” says Tarver.
“And,” he adds, ”we feel that all students can learn.”
The school also has a low percentage of poverty, says Downs, which the state says affects learning.
“They don’t maybe necessarily have the same challenges that some of our schools have,” she says—when compared to Newberry Middle School, for instance.
The highest number of Little Mountain students that receive subsidized meals, a factor that sometimes signals poverty, is 12 within fifth grade.
At Newberry Middle, there are 165 students in sixth grade that receive subsidized meals.
“If you look at the free and reduced lunch rate of schools around the district,” Downs says, “then we can see that we do have some schools that are more challenged.”
But as far as sore spots in district numbers, Newberry doesn’t plan to sit with low numbers for long.
“From the time we got our scores we have been working with the schools,” says Downs.
Since late fall, when PASS scores arrived exclusively at district offices, Newberry has been crunching data, giving out scores to schools and helping explain the numbers. Already, schools have plans for improvement, Downs says.
And when something works to improve students’ learning, the district multiplies that good to other schools.
For instance, with higher-than-usual Adequate Yearly Progress scores, Boundary Street Elementary principal Tim Hunter points to one of a few keys that he feels brought success.
One keys is “PBIS,” he says, a discipline program that uses “Positive Behavior Interventions and Support.”
Parents and students around the district may know the program better for its “BLAST bucks” that are passed out to students “caught” at positive behavior.
The program makes sure students get more praise than correction, prompting teachers to first look for the positive and focus on that, says Hunter.
“It allows the teachers to teach... It’s changing the mindset of the teachers and the kids, trying to bring out (the) positive in them,” he says.
The system also dissolves some discipline issues, making more time to teach.
“Since we have implemented PBIS, our discipline referrals have decreased and our rewards for our students have increased,” said Hunter of the system last year.
PBIS is one of the “goods” that the district has passed on to other schools, Downs says.
Both Newberry Elementary and Gallman Elementary now use PBIS, and Newberry Middle uses some of the PBIS program while Newberry High is considering parts of PBIS to use.
But while educators are working feverishly to increase the “goods,” Newberry Middle still has five hot spots of low percentage pass rates.
More than half of Newberry Middle students in five areas failed with a below-50 percentage: writing (grade 8), English (grades 7, 8), math (grade 8), science (grades 6, 8) and social studies (grades 7, 8).
NMS Principal Katrina Singletary says the school worked through an external review process with the State Department of Education last year and set goals based on Measures of Academic Progress scores, or “MAP” test grades.
“We met all of those internal goals and feel they represented areas that we saw growth,” she says.
And as far as PASS data, Singletary strongly feels Newberry Middle will move away from being an “at-risk” school.
Plus, like Little Mountain’s “Mountain minds time,” Newberry Middle has an enrichment and remediation period called “Tiger Time,” where students are grouped by their Measures of Academic Progress scores.
“Teachers work on areas that need to be reinforced with our students during this time,” says Singletary. “Our schoolwide professional development is based on writing effective assessments and creating engaging lessons for students.”
“By no means are we satisfied with our data, but we will continue to move forward,” she says.
Already, the school has inducted 40 new members into the National Beta Club this past week and recognized 304 students for making first and second nine weeks honor roll.
“This is the largest number inducted since I have been principal here,” she says.
And Singletary says poverty is one of many factors to consider when thinking about student achievement.
Having a high number of students who receive discount-priced meals at school “certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t be successful,” Downs says.
“There really are no excuses,” she says. “Differing schools have differing challenges. And every school has its challenges, but you can’t let those challenges be obstacles for your students achieving.”
Downs points to Boundary Street Elementary as an example where even with traditionally low scores, schools can improve.
And improvement doesn’t have to mean schools clear the higher-than-ever federally-set bar that says all students nationwide must be 100 percent proficient by 2014 in English and math.
Down says within PASS scores, which give more data details than PACT, principals can see exactly how many students need to do better before the school improves overall in a performance area, like in math or English.
“It could have been seven kids,” she says. “And (boosting) seven kids is doable.”
For further breakdown of Newberry’s scores, visit http://ed.sc.gov/topics/assessment/scores/pass/2009.
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