Making Sense of Data

Another look at the DSTP data for the Christina School District:

In Fall of 2006, 4th graders scored at 88.8% meeting or exceeding science standard.
Those same students were tested in the Fall of 2008 as 6th graders and scored at 66% meeting or exceeding science standards. In the course of 2 years, 22% stopped meeting/exceeding standard.

In Fall of '06, 68.3% of fourth graders met or exceeded state social studies standard. In the Fall of 08, 52.1% of those students, as sixth graders , met or exceeded the standard. That is a decrease of 16.2%

My thoughts: Clearly something is happening between fourth grade and sixth, something is not working. A double digit rise in failure rates give me great concern. Whether you like the test or not, it's what we have and we need to focus on why these students are failing to make progress and even regressing. It's time to revisit our strategic plan, because at this rate, we will never attain the goals outlined in the CSD plan.

While many are assuming the DCAS test will replace the DSTP, we cannot operate on that assumption. Nor do we know that our students will score better using the DCAS model. We need to plan now on how to move the resources into the classrooms that our teachers need to educate our students!