Snoqualmie Valley School District results are above state average for new standardized tests
September 1, 2010
By Sebastian Moraga
NEW — 11:15 p.m. Sept. 1, 2010
The new standardized test scores released Tuesday brought mixed results for Snoqualmie Valley School District.
Some schools in the district saw big improvements in their standing relative to other Washington schools over last year. Other schools saw continued success, but some schools slipped.
This year was the first for the High School Proficiency Exam and the Measurement of Student Progress for elementary and middle schools. The tests replaced the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, which was introduced in the late 1990s.
Mount Si students scored 87.1 percent in reading, down 2 percent from the previous year, but better than state and district averages.
Mount Si scored 57.7 percent in math, down from 60 percent in the 2008-2009 school year but well above the state average 41.6 percent.
Reading scores for Mount Si slipped to 87.1, down from 89.1.
The school’s science scores increased almost 10 percentage points to 58 percent.
Despite Mount Si’s gains, the school’s principal, Randy Taylor, criticized the new test after results were released for students who took the test last spring as 10th graders.
“The reading portion took longer than anticipated, and we had kids needing more time to finish the test,” he said.
Randy Dorn, state Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in an Aug. 31 news release that the state will shorten the reading test to be taken in spring 2011.
Taylor said the math standards changed since the previous test and that it’s not fair to compare two tests with different standards.
The comparison is valid this year but won’t be next year, said Chris Barron, a spokesman for the superintendent. The state will replace the current math test with two exams on algebra and geometry in 2011.
The exams will be the third different high school math tests in three years.
Taylor criticized the move. “The kids and teachers will have to adapt to a different test again,” he said.
The Snoqualmie Valley School District declined to comment for this story.
The tests are not the only way to measure student success, Taylor said.
“There’s other indicators that say kids are being successful despite the WASL and HSPE scores,” he said, referring to the old and new standardized tests.
He pointed to the results of another standardized test — the ACT, a college-admission test — taken by juniors last school year.
“Our ACT scores … they are phenomenal, just blew our socks off.”
Other scores include:
- Cascade View Elementary scored on average 19.6 percent above state averages in all its grades’ reading tests.
- Opstad Elementary’s third- and fifth-grade reading scores of 76.7 and 78.9 percent respectively, each dropped almost 10 percentage points from last year. Both scores stand above state average. Fourth-grade reading improved 7.2 percent from 2008-09, with 81.9 percent. The school had math scores below district and state averages on fourth and fifth grades.
- Chief Kanim Middle School’s scored 88.1 percent in sixth-grade reading, 86.7 percent in seventh and 86.2 percent in eighth. On average, these scores stand 21 percentage points above the state average. The school’s math scores, 79.7, 84.8 and 78.9 percent respectively, stand on average 26 percentage points higher. “We attribute our success to the district as a whole,” he said. “It’s kind of a trickle-up effect,” Principal Kirk Dunckel said. “Kids are benefiting from good teachers all along the way, from elementary.
- Snoqualmie Elementary third-graders scored 74.6 percent in reading, a drop from last year’s 81.7 percent. Fourth-graders dropped from 75.3 percent to 69.2 percent. Fifth-graders jumped from last year’s 77.4 to 78.8 percent. The school scored better than the state average in math in fourth and fifth grades. Fifth-graders scored 50 percent in science, 16 percentage points better than state’s average, but down 9.1 percent from last year.
- Snoqualmie Middle School scored 73.3 percent in sixth-grade reading, a drop from the 2008-09 score of 82 percent. The school improved on last year’s scores in seventh-grade reading, with 77.2 percent and eighth grade, with 82.8 percent. The school scored 75.5, 74 and 68.8 percent in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade math, respectively. Math scores were on average almost 20 percent higher than the state averages.
- Twin Falls Middle School scored 80.3 in seventh-grade reading, a 7.3 percent jump from last year. Eighth-graders scored 86.5 percent, a 1.7 percent jump. Sixth-graders’ scored 79.2 percent, a 5.4 percent drop. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders scored 70.3, 69.7 and 67.6 percent in math, respectively, on average 16 points above the state marks.
- Two Rivers School eighth-graders scored a 38.5 percent on their reading test. Two Rivers’ 10th-graders scored a 66.7 percent in reading, down from 69.2 in 2008-09. Tenth-graders scored 15.8 percent in math, 71.4 percent in writing and 36.8 percent in science.
Sebastian Moraga: 3926434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.
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