The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
District 'excited' about results
Saline students met or exceeded state standards in math and reading on MEAP
By Brian Cox, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: January 25, 2007
"I am very proud to be able to inform all of you that, once again, the achievements of our students in grades 3-8 in the core academic areas are superb!" she wrote enthusiastically.
Advertisement
Students in third through eighth grades were tested in math, reading and writing, in October. Fifth- and eighth-graders also tested in science, and sixth- and ninth-graders tested in social studies.
The number of Saline students who met or exceeded state standards in math and reading continued to exceed 90 percent across all grades.
"We did very well and are excited about the results," said Betty Rosen-Leacher, deputy superintendent of instructional services.
She said work would begin with building principals to identify trends and weaknesses that might require attention.
Weaknesses may be hard to find, though.
Ninety-eight percent of Saline third-graders proved proficient in math and almost 96 percent proficient in reading, both of which surpass the state averages, but remained consistent with 2005 numbers.
Rosen-Leacher said she was particularly pleased with the reading scores.
More than 55 percent of Saline fourth-graders exceeded standards in reading, while 58 percent of fifth-graders, 57 percent of sixth-graders and 56 percent of eighth-graders did.
In contrast, the highest state average of students exceeding standards in reading is 42 percent at the third grade.
Of all the subject areas tested, Geltner has identified writing as in "need of sharper focus."
In comparison to more than 80 percent of third-graders exceeding standards in math, only 1.5 percent exceeded standards in writing. While 95 percent of fourth-graders met or exceed standards in math, only 54 percent did so in writing.
"Our writing weakness is in the third and fourth grades, where students are just starting to hone their writing skills," said Rosen-Leacher.
By the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, the percentage of students proving proficient in writing moves up into the 80th percentile, although the number of students exceeding standards drops. In 2005, more than 16 percent of eighth-graders exceeded standards in writing. This year, only 3.6 percent did so.
Of particular interest to Rosen-Leacher is that educators will now be able to follow students' improvement from one grade to the next because students were tested on what they learned through the end of the previous year. It's the second straight year that MEAP testing was conducted in the fall, after several years of midyear testing.
"What we're really excited about is the opportunity to track kids' progress and look at trends over time," she said.
In addition to continuing to work on massaging the writing curriculum, Rosen-Leacher said educators would start looking closely at students who fall in the levels below, exceeds or meets standards to figure out how best to advance them.
"Then we'll ask how do we move kids from one level to the next," she said.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
