Posted on 05/03/2007 8:10:43 AM PDT by devane617
LAND O'LAKES - About 950 Pasco County third-graders - that's 260 more than a year ago - might have to repeat the grade after failing the FCAT reading exam this spring.
Things look worst for Cox Elementary in Dade City, where fewer than half of the school's 85 third-graders performed at grade level on either the reading or math sections of the test. Last year, more than 60 percent of the school's third-graders were reading at grade level.
Cox is one of nine county schools facing sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind Act if it does not show overall improvement in student achievement this year.
FCAT results released Wednesday also showed that just 63 high school seniors passed the exit-level reading exam, of 347 who took it, and 63 passed the math section, of 185 who took it. The success rate on reading was up slightly, but still below 20 percent, while the math rate sank a bit to 34 percent.
The remaining FCAT scores are not expected for at least two weeks.
Most of the attention this year goes to the third-grade results because they went down after several years of increases.
State and local officials pointed to a continued upward trend since 2001, calling last year's results a "spike" that did not follow the otherwise smooth line of improvement. In Pasco, for instance, the outcome is better than that of 2005, though below last year's numbers.
This year, 19 percent of Pasco third-graders scored at the lowest level on the reading test. That's worse than the 14 percent of a year ago, but better than the 20 percent of 2005. In math, 14 percent received the lowest mark, improved from 15 percent a year ago and 17 percent in 2005.
"When you look at the scores over a six-year period the trend is moving in a positive direction and it's continuing that way. There was a spike in that trend last year, " superintendent Heather Fiorentino said.
She used Cox as an example. Though the school showed a one-year 17-point swing down in the percentage of children reading at or above grade level, it actually had a slow but steady increase since 2003, when just 35 percent of Cox third-graders were reading at grade level, Fiorentino noted.
That's despite having 95 percent of its students receiving free lunches and 89 percent having limited English abilities.
"We're not saying we don't have more work to do, " she said. "But they have moved up and that's a positive thing."
She and her staff did not buy into what some are calling the "cohort effect." That's where you explain away a year's results by saying the students were exceptional.
"I don't think you can just explain it away by saying ... 1998 was a really great year to be a baby, " said research and evaluation director David Scanga, who figured it would take some time to figure out why last year's third-graders did so well.
Fiorentino liked to look at several positive aspects within the test results. For instance, a majority of Pasco third-graders did better than the national average in reading and math on the Stanford Achievement Test section of the FCAT.
Also, Mary Giella Elementary reduced the percentage of lowest-performing students in reading to 11 percent from 24 percent; and Lacoochee Elementary saw its percentage of Level 1 readers drop to 9 percent, from 19 percent, while it increased the percentage of students at grade level or higher in math to 73 percent.
Pine View, Sand Pine, Longleaf and Trinity Oaks elementary schools continued to have success, with more than 80 percent of their students reading at or above grade level. Longleaf had just 1 percent of students at Level 1 in math, with 91 percent at grade level or above.
The state releases much less information about the senior retakes. No school by school results, for instance. Still, Pasco officials were heartened by the general improvement of the district passing rate, noting that those few who continue to take the FCAT as seniors are "our most struggling students" yet they have not dropped out.
Scanga added that a preliminary look at 11th-grade repeaters shows improvement in the passing rate, too. Most important, assistant superintendent Sandra Ramos said, is that Pasco sophomores succeed on the exit-level exam, which is first given in 10th grade.
"We want 10th-graders passing on the first time, " Ramos said.
How can this possibily happen? See my tag-line...
...now maybe you can see my tag-line...
But they know what a condom is and what a lesbian is.....
Requiring English literacy in a U.S. school is racism, plain and simple.
As long as the Feds and the teachers’ unions control the agenda, it will only get worse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0lR1KQq2-U
Our world is getting ready for a large servant class pool. Wages will plummet and people will sign up for a form of vassalhood.
It is a little like 19th century England here today. Land is being taken for the pleasure of the few through ecology based land grabs and in our neck of the woods, large foundations and trusts.
That, and the fact that if you want to require English literacy in a public school then you would need to hire teachers who were actually literate.
My girlfriend is a teacher but I know I wouldn’t have the patience around kids to be a good teacher like her.. Its depressing how most of the teachers there treat the children, like they are some sort of burden to be kept in line. A lot of her colleagues have limited knowledge of their own subject and no concept of developmental psychology and no way/desire to relate to the children on a personal level.
The kids rebel because they can sense they are being treated like trash, but she’s gotten some good results out of some of the students other teachers had long given up on. A kid gets labeled as a trouble maker or an idiot and that label will follow them from teacher to teacher, grade to grade, unless someone decides to give them a chance.
The vast majority of teachers AND the vast majority of parents seem to be equally guilty in this fiasco, but neither side wants to take up any sort of responsibility. Its a pretty vicious cycle.
We high school teachers have been plagued with this for a long time.
I have had students who read on a 3rd grade level, yet miraculously made it to high school. Since they could not read, they drop out as soon as they hit 16.
Of course, this reflects badly on me, because I didn’t do enough to teach that kid.
Finally, they are holding them back in the lower years, but like most things, it is a Catch-22.
Say you hold back 20 kids. Next year, 15 of the 20 go on, but now you have 20 more held back and 15 go on. Eventually, you are going to have to have a place to put kids who do not make it, besides the school they attend.
I know of a situation a few years ago here where I teach when they would retain 7th graders. It worked until the 7th graders started driving. This represents about 3 years of retention!
There are two sides to everything.
No, the solution is to shut down the government schools.
Getting a job in the government schools is like giving
CPR to a dead horse. Worse, it exposed our nation’s children to continued Marxist indoctrination.
I am asked by some why I concentrate so much on school issues. The reason is that the very continuation of our nation depends on eliminating government schools. Government schools are actively training up a generation of illiterate and innumerate, and easily led, Marxists.
It **IS** that serious.
The main reason was buried in the article.
Of course their "solution" will be to teach the kids in Spanish. And will we bill their home countries for this benefit. Of course not. And our own kids will continue to suffer because of it.
If I had repeated third grade I would have been older and bigger the rest of the way through school and would have been more successful in playground bullying.
I think it’s better to catch this now, than let things slide. Making sure they can read before they leave the third grade just makes sure they have a better opportunity to progress down the road. If they can’t read, they won’t be able to learn.
.....calling last year’s results a “spike”....
Or some might call it dirt that finally spilled out under the edge of the rug. If you sweep dirt under the rug too many times, eventually it sifts out around the edges.
Our once beautiful nation is being transformed into a polyglot third world cesspool of illiterate trash before our very eyes.
And the corrupt politicians can’t let them in fast enough.
If this was my hometown, they'd just dumb the test down and lower the grade required to pass (really, not joking).
On the other hand... last week I put a “license plate” with my grand son’s name on it on his trike. When I pointed it out, he said “Oh, you put my name on it.” He is 2 1/2 years old.
They had learned letter sounds from watching Sesame Street. Then I would spend 20 minutes per day with them combining letter sounds. We began with "a" -- "ah." "t" -- "tuh." "Ah-tuh." "At!" The first day they learned "at," "as," and "ax." After four weeks of this, I gave them "Hop on Pop." And then they were off and running.
Teaching reading is very easy. Don't listen to the professionals.
FYI, I used the book "Alphaphonics" by Sam Blumenfeld. I highly recommend it.
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