State test scores don’t paint full picture for local elementary schools

Although Celestine and Chrisney Elementary Schools were two of 21 schools in the state to get perfect scores on the recent I-Read 3 testing and most area elementary schools achieved the over 90% required to pass the test, Tenth Street School in Jasper and Huntingburg Elementary along with Dubois Elementary were unable to achieve the passing score.  However, according to these local principals, the conclusions don’t tell the whole story.

The I-READ 3 test is a new measurement used by Indiana to rate phonics, vocabulary and reading comprehension of students. It’s imperative that third-graders pass these exams in order to be able to advance to the fourth grade, or they face remediation in the summer.

If the remediation does not help the student pass the exams a second time, then they are mandated to be retained in the third grade. The problem according to Kent Taylor, principal of 10th Street Elementary in Jasper is that the raw numbers do not take into consideration what is called “good cause exemptions.”

Those “exemptions” include a student who has already been retained two times, those who are not fluent English speaking, and special needs students. Taylor says that those all could be exempt by a committee and therefore be allowed to go on to the fourth grade.

Taylor says 10th Street had exempt students who were not taken into consideration. “When you take those into consideration,” He explained, “what you end up with is four kids in our whole school that could possibly be considered for retention.”

That brings 10th Street pass rate to 96.9 percent, not the 83 percent listed by the state on the current I-Read 3 results release.

Huntingburg Elementary Principal John Seger agrees with Taylor. He said he has seen the same thing at his school.  “We have a number of students that qualified for a waiver because of being an English as a Second Language (ESL) student or a special needs student,” Seger said. “We also had one student show up in third grade a week before the test and didn’t pass it.”

The concept of the I-READ 3 program is based upon the idea that if a student has the abilities to perform at a certain level in language arts, they will be ready to move on and face the increased rigors of learning requirements in later grades. Taylor’s point is that what might appear to be a negative isn’t the true picture. He says that there are a lot of positive things happening, not just in the Jasper Schools, but the whole county and his goal is to accentuate those positives.

“96.9 % of our kids are going on to fourth grade. That’s right up there with Ireland (Elementary) and the rest of them,” Kent said.

[box type=”info” icon=”none”]The following Dubois County Elementary Schools did not meet the requirements to pass.

• Huntingburg Elementary School: 86 percent
• Dubois Elementary School: 85 percent
• Tenth Street School: 83 percent

The following Dubois County schools achieved a passing rate.

• Ireland Elementary School: 97 percent.
• Pine Ridge Elementary School: 95 percent.
• Ferdinand Elementary School: 94 percent.
• Holland Elementary School: 92 percent.[/box]