Beyond the testing
By KATE SCHOTT kschott@daily-chronicle.com
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| Brookes Elementary School Principal Shahran Spears leads a discussion on discipline during a parent night at Jefferson Elementary School. (Beck Diefenbach – bdiefenbach@daily-chronicle.com) |
SYCAMORE – Tim Carlson had a sweet treat for students entering Sycamore High School on Friday morning.
"Smarties for being smart," he said as he stood at the main entrance and handed a roll of the round candies to students entering the building. Staff members were at other doors, ensuring the roughly 1,200 students all received the treat.
It was small way to congratulate the students on an increase in state test scores in reading on the Prairie State Achievement Exam: 72.7 percent of students met or exceeded reading standards this year, up from 59.7 percent in 2008, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
Although the test scores are those of this year's seniors, Carlson, the school's principal, said he hopes other students are inspired by their achievement.
"We hope this year's freshmen, sophomores and juniors take to heart the leadership and hard work this year's seniors demonstrated in preparation for last April's exams," Carlson said during a morning announcement over the school's intercom. The reading increase ranked the high school as the 77th best in the state, up from 155th last year, Carlson said.
Despite the increase in reading scores, Sycamore High did not make AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, because of its math scores. AYP is a benchmark based on the annual performance on standardized tests that the state, districts and schools must reach to be considered to be in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
NCLB requires 100 percent of students be proficient in reading and math by the 2013-2014 academic year. This year, 70 percent of Illinois students were expected to meet or exceed the state learning standards. Depending on how many years a school has not meet AYP, they are required to have improvement plans, offer supplemental services and other corrective actions.
Educators at the 10 schools in DeKalb County – six high schools, two middle schools and two elementary schools – that did not make AYP this year said they are finding ways to help students.
"Not meeting AYP, it's unfortunate. We wish we had made it," said Angelo Lekkas, principal of Genoa-Kingston Middle School. "But not making AYP is not the issue. The issue in my heart and in the hearts of all the teachers here is that kids are afforded the opportunity to succeed and achieve. That's what we really look at."
Parental involvement
Many educators said a key element to student success is getting parents involved. Jefferson Elementary in DeKalb, for instance, held a family night Thursday intended to foster a partnership between parents and the school, Principal Karen Mink said. A pizza dinner was provided for the 140 adults and 175 kids registered, and parents attended three half-hour sessions while students watched a movie.
The 19 sessions included everything from how to reinforce math skills at home to keeping children active to how to encourage positive behavior at home. Because the school has not met AYP for two years, Jefferson had to offer parents the choice of transferring to another school; fewer than 30 did so, according to district officials.
Not meeting AYP was not enough for Sarah Carmichael to consider sending her kindergartner, Emma, to another school. She noted that parents who have had students at the school longer could only tell her good things about it.
"I came because being involved in my child's education is very important to me," she said during the "Help Your Kindergarten Student Become a Reader!" session in which parents created a "Make It Take It" bag full of literary items – such as alphabet puzzles and laminated strips to write words on – to promote reading at home.
Lekkas said parents of G-K Middle School students get monthly newsletters at home. They can also go to the school's Web site to find a child's grades and assignments, as well as a review of what happened in each class on a given day or read blogs by Lekkas and the assistant principal.
NCLB affords educators the opportunity to target groups of kids and improve the educational process for them," Lekkas said. At his school, students with disabilities did not meet the state standards this year. But he emphasized that the schools should be finding ways to better educate all children.
"It's easy to say a subgroup – nameless, faceless – didn't make AYP," he said. "We look at each individual and find ways for them to succeed. That's why we are in education."
Lekkas said G-K has worked to align curriculum with state standards, implement best-practice instruction and provide intervention services for students who need them.
High school tests
Several high schools said they, too, are taking a closer look at curriculum. Many high schools don't make AYP because of the Prairie State Achievement Exam tests, Somonauk Curriculum Director Jay Streicher said. Somonauk High did not meet AYP in math, he said.
In elementary and middle school, students take the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, which is aligned with state learning standards – which is why a higher percentage of students tend to meet standards, Streicher said.
But in high school juniors take the PSAE – a test based on the ACT’s College Readiness Standards and it not aligned with the state standards the schools are supposed to be teaching, he said. The ACT is intended to gauge how well a student will do in the first year of college.
Many of the math questions, for instance, included information from a second-level algebra class, Streicher said. Now all Somonauk students take that course before taking the PSAE.
"We try to hold ourselves to pretty high standards," Streicher said. "It is frustrating when somebody tells you it's not good enough. I never want to settle, and I always want to do better. That's just the way you have to look at it. Let's just take where we are and try to do a little bit better."
Recent test results led Sycamore High administrators to the conclusion that they weren't supporting teachers or students enough, Carlson said. That has led to administrators providing more support to teachers, working with the middle school to provide a smoother transition from middle to high school and getting the students who need help assistance, he said. Teachers have visited high schools that perform well in math to see what could be implemented locally.
"It's not the kids," he said. "It's the opportunities we give kids. We have to support them."
Getting the students on board also is important, Carlson said. At Sycamore, seniors that show improvement on test scores can go to the senior lounge – an area of the building with TVs and computers – instead of their study hall. Second semester, they qualify for open campus and can leave the school during study halls, Carlson said.
The incentives are to show students that their teachers consider the test to be a serious part of their academic careers, he added.
"We don't know at times if they took the test seriously," Carlson said. "It's not an exit exam. We want to make it important to the kids."
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