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Breakfast Meeting: Educators Stress Importance of State Exams

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 18:00 CST

By GINA MACRIS Journal Staff Writer

Tiverton High School has made significant gains in recent years, scoring in the high performing and improving category two years running.

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TIVERTON - How do you make a captive audience out of a bunch of teenagers? Feed them. And if it's in the interest of better academic performance, all the better.

At the end next month, the faculty of Tiverton High School will treat the junior class to breakfast while they explain the importance of doing one's very best on state exams scheduled for mid- March.

The faculty also will outline stepped-up test preparation exercises the students will encounter in English and math classes in the last couple of weeks before the exams.

The breakfast rally is just one of several strategies the high school uses throughout the school year, both to impress upon students the importance of the tests and to hone skills in English and math.

The stakes are high. For the last three years, Tiverton High has made significant gains, moving from moderately performing in 2003 to high performing and improving in 2004 and 2005. And Tiverton High was a Regents Commended School both in 2004 and 2005.

In an interview this week, high school principal Steve Fezette analyzed the most recent test data and described other steps, besides the breakfast rally, that the school takes to focus students' attention and hone their math and literacy skills.

In math skills, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards was 79 percent last year, 23 percent higher than the state average and an 11 percent increase over last year, Fezette said.

Fifty-seven percent of juniors met or exceeded the standards in math concepts, 18 points higher than the state average of 39 percent and a 14 percent increase from 2004, he said.

And in problem-solving, 59 percent hit the target or exceeded it. That is a full 20 percent higher than the state average of 39 percent, a 16-percent hike from 2004.

In basic reading comprehension, 70 percent of Tiverton students met or exceeded state standards, 9 percent more than last year. The state average in this category was 51 percent in 2005.

Forty-seven percent met or exceeded the bar for writing effectiveness, 5 percent higher than the state average and a 10 percent increase over Tiverton's scores in 2004.

And in writing conventions, 84 percent of students made the grade, 8 percent more than in 2004. The state average in this category was 71 percent for 2005.

FEZETTE acknowledged that one of the main factors contributing to the rise in scores is that the high school test has been taken by juniors rather than sophomores in the last two years.

The exam measures 10th-grade achievement levels, but until 2004 it was taken by students who had not yet completed the 10th grade.

Fezette said instruction has also changed both to conform to the types of questions asked on the math and language arts tests, and to prepare for new graduation requirements emphasizing applied learning that go into effect in 2008 -- just two years from now.

In math, students accumulate portfolios throughout the school year of the types of problems that may appear on the exams, he said. Review of those problems is stepped up in the last few weeks before the exams, which are held in mid-March.

On a day-to-day basis, students must not only solve problems but explain how they reached the solution, Fezette said.

THERE IS ALSO a greater emphasis on application of mathematics to real-life situations, which calls for the kind of critical thinking embodied in the state standards and the performance-based graduation standards that will go into effect in 2008, he said.

For example, algebra students might be called on to compare different cell phone plans, and geometry students might be asked to design a tent.

In language arts, juniors are asked to write two persuasive essays on specific issues during several weeks leading up to the exams, and teachers meet and compare notes on the results.

The faculty review gives teachers time to fine tune their instruction to bolster students' weaker areas, Fezette said.

He said the school is also working with weak readers in the freshman and sophomore years, to fulfill state requirements that students reading two or more years below grade level follow personal literacy plans for remediation.

Fezette said 2 percent of freshmen and sophomores fall in this category and an additional 5 percent are not as far behind, but still reading below grade level.

To address their needs, he said, the school hired its first full- time reading instructor in the spring of 2004. That teacher assessed all eighth graders to determine which students would need support at the high school.

Those students are now sophomores, and eighth graders assessed in 2005 are now freshmen.

Fezette said each eighth grade class will be assessed in the spring as the program moves forward. Depending on need, students in the program receive reading instruction every day or every other day, Fezette said.

Meanwhile, language arts instructors have received professional development on ways to focus their students' reading assignments.

"Instead of the teacher saying, 'read the first two sections of the chapter,' " he said, the instructor might ask the class to "think about three (specific) questions" and present key vocabulary terms the students might encounter in the reading.

"It's still to be determined how much success we're having," Fezette said.

"It's a new concept for secondary teachers to be responsible for how kids are reading," he said.

IN ADDITION to all the other initiatives, Fezette said, the staff analyzes each year's scores, looking for areas where students need to improve, and tailor instruction to target the weak spots.

This year the faculty has gained additional time for such work and other academic reforms.

For the first time, Fezette said, faculty have one period a week for planning purposes within their academic departments.

And seven of nine faculty meetings historically held during the school year with the principal have been converted to planning time, Fezette said.

Educators generally consider planning time a key element in the ultimate success of educational reforms.

"When the testing first started, seven or eight years ago, high schools were the most difficult to motivate," Fezette said.

Students said, "This isn't going to stop me from graduating. It won't prevent me from going to college."

But the participation rate, one of the factors measured by the state as a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Law, is now near 100 percent at Tiverton High.

Fezette partly attributes the increase to aggressive follow-up by the guidance department in tracking down students who miss the exams and scheduling them for make-up sessions.

But the school has also built in some academic rewards. Performance on the state exams are used to calculate National Honor Society standings.

And juniors who meet standards in two out three math subtests and three out four English subtests are exempted from mid-year exams their senior year, he said.

gmacris@projo.com / 401-277-7455

Source: Providence Journal

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