Last Thursday, Fort Wayne Community Schools held a press conference to present preliminary data from the spring’s ISTEP+ testing.
Following is the press release and video:
FWCS ISTEP+ results improve, following same trend as FWCS exams
Fort Wayne Community Schools improved at every grade level on the 2010 Spring ISTEP+. Preliminary results show district wide passing rates went up 5 percentage points on average in math and 6 percentage points on average in language arts. The results follow the same trends FWCS officials saw earlier in the year in predictive tests, including Acuity, which students took in December. The predictive tests are intended to give teachers information throughout the year to assist in individualizing instruction for each student by pinpointing exactly where each child is achieving and where he or she needs additional instruction.
“We believe these results reflect the dedication of employees at every level, from the teachers, who are working to make sure all students achieve to high standards, to administrators, who are leading each of our schools to success, to the support staff, who fill critical roles in each of our buildings,” Superintendent Dr. Wendy Robinson said. “Our employees have been working hard for many years, and we believe their efforts and their ability to stay focused on individual student growth are paying off.”
For several years, FWCS has concentrated on being precise in the way teachers deliver instruction to make sure they are personalizing instruction for each student. That has required making sure teachers have the training they need to lead successful classrooms.
“It is our moral purpose to make sure all students achieve,” Dr. Robinson said. “These results show that while we still have a ways to go, we have the tools in place to move in the right direction as an entire district.”
While the results are positive, they are still preliminary as the state works to clean up the data. The data for middle schools is incomplete because Blackhawk Middle School is not included in the sixth- and eighth-grade results, and Memorial Park Middle School is not included in eighth-grade results because of a glitch in scoring. Those grades will be rescored, but results are not expected for several weeks, and likely will not come until after the full state release.
FWCS anticipates receiving paper copies of individual student results this week and will mail them to parents immediately. Parents will also be able to access individual student results through the state’s online Parent Network. Additional information on how to access the network will be included in the mailing.
“While we’re pleased as a district with these results, this is only the first step,” Dr. Robinson said. “We expect to build on these results next year. With major changes taking place in many of our schools, we are looking forward to continuing this upward trend.”
Acuity Predictive B and Preliminary Spring 2010 ISTEP Results
Percent of Students PassingEnglish Language Arts Grade 2009 ISTEP Acuity Predictive B* 2010 ISTEP 3 64 73 73 4 64 69 70 5 61 68 66 6 53 65 60 7 52 60 59 8 51 57 54 Math Grade 2009 ISTEP Acuity Predictive B* 2010 ISTEP 3 60 66 66 4 60 66 65 5 70 75 74 6 61 62 65 7 55 55 61 8 56 54 60
There are three other video segments, available for viewing here.
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