By JENN McDOWELL
Goffstown News Correspondent
 

GOFFSTOWN - The state’s standards for measuring adequacy among New Hampshire school students were raised this year, and based on the results from the New England Common Assessment Program test scores students took in fall 2007, Goffstown schools did rather poorly while Dunbarton and New Boston showed continued improvement.

The testing is aimed at bringing every student in the state up to a level of proficiency by the year 2014. The scores to attain in order for schools to make adequate yearly progress in each subject area are raised every two years.

Students across the state in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 were administered the NECAP test in fall 2007. Students’ progress at the school and district level is measured based on the results, and students are broken into different subgroups, including special education and economically disadvantaged, for analyzing the performance of particular groups of students.

If one of those subgroups fails to meet the bar in a particular subject area, the entire school is considered as not having made adequate yearly progress.

If a school fails to meet those standards for two years in a row, it earns a “school in need of improvement” designation.

Such a school needs to make adequate yearly progress for two years in a row to exit that status.

In most cases, school officials said, the special education subgroup is what caused schools to miss the state’s benchmarks.

High school students across the state were not tested last year to allow a transition from spring to fall testing, so high schools retained whatever status they earned from the prior year’s adequate yearly progress results.

No Goffstown schools – Goffstown High, Bartlett Elementary, Maple Avenue and Mountain View – met the state standards for adequate yearly progress in reading or math for 2008-09, based on the NECAP test scores from this past fall.

Bartlett and Maple Avenue met the mark in both subjects for the 2007-08 year, and having done so, each has one more year to test well before entering school in need of improvement status.

Goffstown High will enter its first year as a school in need of improvement for reading and remains that status going on a third year for math. Mountain View enters its third year for reading and first year for math as a school in need of improvement.

Despite the test scores, the assistant superintendent for Goffstown, Dunbarton and New Boston schools, Kathi Titus, said Goffstown schools are improving with regard to reading and math performance, and added the NECAP test scores do not necessarily reflect that positive growth because of the performance of subgroups, particularly special education students.

“It’s a snapshot. I think it tests skills that we really think are valuable skills and content,” said Titus. “But a snapshot never can be the entire picture,” adding year-to-year data shows progression.

This year was one in which the test scores needed to make adequate yearly progress were raised, Titus pointed out, also contributing to poor performance in some schools.

“This year, the target scores went up, so it’s a progressively more ambitious target as we get closer and closer to 2014, and what we want to do is get on a steeper trajectory towards that target,” Titus said.

Under a special safe harbor exemption, in which schools that made leaps and bounds in testing scores but did not actually get the minimum score in the subject areas, New Boston Central made adequate yearly progress for the coming year after not making it last year.

Dunbarton Elementary has made adequate yearly progress in both subjects for 2008-09 as it did last year.

Weare Superintendent Christine Tyrie said the district will appeal John Stark’s failing grade for adequate yearly progress in reading because the school did not have the required 95 percent participation in the special education subgroup.

As it stands, John Stark missed the marks for both reading and math for 2008-09, designated a school in need of improvement in both subjects.

Center Woods School missed adequate yearly progress for 2008-09, but hit the mark in math after missing it in both subjects the previous year. The school will enter its first year as a school in need of improvement for reading, again the result of poor performance by the special education subgroup, Tyrie said.

Weare Middle School made adequate yearly progress in both reading and math for 2008-09 after missing in both last year. Having been designated a school in need of improvement in both subjects, the school needs to make the grade in both areas in the next round of testing to exit that status.

“Our results were a ‘mixed bag.’ Obviously we are pleased when schools make (adequate yearly progress) and frustrated when they don’t, because we know how hard everyone is working on curriculum, differentiated instruction and assessment,” Tyrie said.

Tyrie said the Weare School District has been working particularly diligently to increase literacy among students, and more focus will be put on math in the coming year.

She added that while raising the bar for school districts is fair, and students generally take the NECAP test seriously, she said it was “unrealistic” to aim to have all students at proficient or better by 2014.

“We have tools, such as Performance Pathways, that allow us to look at individual student responses to questions and a variety of group data,” Tyrie said.

“Personally, I want to focus on the best instructional practices for students. If the NECAP scores are good, that is nice, but we look at the whole picture to determine success and to identify areas in need of attention.”
 

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Reproduced by the Goffstown Residents Association.