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Sperry's A-F Report Cards Are Released
Sperry Schools Receives 2016 A-F Report Cards
There is not a superintendent in the state of Oklahoma who does not recognize the lack of accuracy and reliability in the current A-F Report Card system, and State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister has called the accountability measure “too flawed to be useful.” However, it is the system being used, and rather than focus on what is wrong about this means of evaluating the performance of our schools, staff and administrators at Sperry Public Schools strive to find the best use in the system we have to glean what useful information we can to help improve instruction in our district.
The overall report card score for Sperry Elementary School increased by 6 points; and while any increase in score, even in a flawed grading system, is aesthetically pleasing, the key elements district and site staff review concern the growth in student skills from one year to the next. The current year Student Achievement section of the report card and both areas of growth monitored for the report card, Overall Student Growth and Bottom Quartile Student Growth, increased from the previous year. Most significantly, the growth shown for the Bottom Quartile Student Growth section, representing the 25% of the elementary’s assessed students who struggle the most to achieve grade-level academic success, had more students than the previous year and yet improved by 13 points. This category represents a group of students whose academic achievement showed the greatest need for improvement, a group of students for whom that improvement invariably meant not only rising to the previous year’s grade-level expectations, but surpassing that and increasing their understanding sufficiently to achieve at least the current year’s grade-level expectations as assessed through the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests (OCCT).
Of the 80 students in the category for reading and mathematics in 4th and 5th grades, 64% of them showed significant enough improvement to be awarded the “Growth Point.” “That in itself is cause of celebration,” Sperry Elementary School Principal Richard Akin said, “but when you look beyond the fact that more than half of these struggling students did more than just improve, that many of these jumped to be at grade level for the first time since they began to read, that cause for celebration increases dramatically. But judging by score given for that improvement, the state does not really seem to care about the students, just numbers.” In elementary mathematics, there were 40 students in the Bottom Quartile and 37 of those showed at least some growth on the state’s OCCT assessments, two of whom increased from the “Limited Knowledge” category to the “Advanced” category. However, under the A-F Report Card system, only 28 of these positive achievements warranted credit. In reading, of the 40 students in the Bottom Quartile, 30 showed improvement and 10 declined in score on the state’s OCCT assessments, with 23 points awarded for this achievement. “Here at Sperry Public Schools, these increases are noted with far more positive perception that the ‘D’ that was applied by the A-F Report Card system,” Mr. Akin said. “However, the three mathematics scores and the 10 reading scores that decreased from 2015 to 2016 are reviewed carefully and those students are receiving additional instruction this school year.
2016 Sperry Elementary Report Card
The report card of Sperry Middle School also indicated improvement in the Overall Student Growth and Bottom Quartile Student Growth categories, but not in the current year Student Achievement section. Just as with the elementary, the Bottom Quartile Student Growth section is scrutinized carefully by reading and mathematics teachers at the site, and by all district level staff working on curriculum. For these struggling students, not only are the general score and proficiency levels reviewed, but individual objective scores for both the previous and current year are examined, and a careful evaluation of past and present classroom attendance, behavior, and classroom academic performance throughout the previous year and into the current year is conducted for each student. The A-F Report Card notes that of the 59 students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math comprising the Bottom Quartile section, only 22 increased sufficiently to be awarded a growth point. Of the 55 students in the reading section of the Bottom Quartile, 31 increased sufficiently to be awarded growth points. However, in mathematics, 34 students had shown an increase in score, 21 decreased from their previous score, and four showed no change; in reading 38 increase from the previous year’s score, 16 decreased, and one remained unchanged. “While this is an improvement over last year’s growth scores,” Mr. Mike Juby, Sperry Middle School Principal, said, “the current year scores and amount of improvement for the two sections of growth all show we have a way to go before we can say we’re satisfied with the performance here.”
2016 Sperry Middle School Report Card
At Sperry High School, all three sections showed a decrease in score, and more significantly, the site—while the overall score only decreased from 75 to 70—received a “D-“ for their grade on the 2015-2016 A-F Report Card. This decrease of an entire letter grade from the grade indicated by their overall score was due to fewer than 95% of their eligible students participating in the End of Instruction (EOI) assessments. “The problem we face with the current system,” Mr. Randy Shaw, Sperry High School Principal, said of the decrease in grade, “is that parents have the legal right to opt their children out of the [EOI] tests, but those students count for the district as non-participation. The state requires students to pass four of the seven EOIs, and once they do, the students often seek a means to get out of taking the other three. No one can blame them for this, with all of the required testing the state has, but even though we cannot force these students to take the tests, we are held accountable when they do not.” At Sperry High School, those EOI exams that students traditionally encounter during their first two years in high school classes, Algebra I, English II, Geometry, and Biology I, all have participation rates at or above 95%, but those EOIs traditionally taken the last two years in high school, Algebra II, English III, and U.S. History, all had less than 90% participation during the 2015-2016 school year.
The Bottom Quartile Student Growth section is studied at Sperry High School with intensity at least equal to that at the lower grades. “We had to make sure students passed those tests so they could graduate,” Mr. Shaw said, “and even though that is no longer the case, we need to work with no less dedication to bring the skills of these students up to grade level expectations and higher, if possible.” The Bottom Quartile of students in Algebra I were awarded 14 points for the 18 out of 21 students who showed improvement. Those in English II earned 11 points for the nine that showed improvement over the score of their 8th grade reading assessment out of the 18 in this category.
2016 Sperry High School Report Card
Sperry School Board President, Jeff Carter, noted his concerns with the A-F Report Cards. “I want accountability for the work of our administrators and teachers, and I know they want that, too, but we all want accountability that provides accurate measurements of the instruction and learning that takes place.”
“The A-F Report Card system is among those programs established by Ms. Hofmeister’s predecessor that are currently being reviewed,” Dr. Beagles said. “We look forward to a reporting system that will provide schools, parents, and communities information about student learning that can actually be used to help improve learning.”
