Madison school district lags behind state on annual tests
Students from the Madison Metropolitan School District lag behind their state peers in data released Friday morning by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in five subject areas for the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE) and Wisconsin Alternate Assessment for Students with Disabilities.
Reading test scores for Madison students changed little compared to 2006-07, but math results decreased in six of the seven grades tested. Of 23 scores in five topics tested statewide, Madison lagged behind state peers in 22 of 23 of those scores. (To see breakdowns of scores by district in the area, click on one of the following links: Barneveld, Belleville, Cambridge, Deerfield, DeForest, Edgerton, Evansville, Lodi, Madison, Marshall, McFarland, Middleton-Cross Plains, Monona Grove, Mount Horeb, Oregon, Pecatonica, Poynette, River Valley, Sauk Prairie, Stoughton, Sun Prairie, Verona, Waterloo, Waunakee, Wisconsin Heights)
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater attributes the district's performance and trends to the growing population of English language learners in the district.
Officials now are able to draw upon three years of results since Wisconsin began administering testing to students in grades three through eight and grade 10 in reading and mathematics. Based on state regulations, students in fourth, eighth and 10th grade were also tested in language arts, science and social studies.
A total of 434,507 students took the WKCE test statewide in fall 2007, and the alternative assessment was given to 1.3 percent of those students.
In Madison, Rainwater said 16 percent of the district's students are English language learners, compared to the state average of 5 percent.
"The test scores are very similar to last year," Rainwater said. "Our students who do not live in poverty continue to do extraordinarily well. The district ranks high with those students.
"The second thing is we appear to have leveled off in terms of our performance for our students who live in poverty. That is a concern, and we're certainly putting some things in place to deal with that."
Despite the fact that the number of English language learners continues to grow in the area and an emphasis will be being placed on improving education, Rainwater said the district won't lose sight of the high-performing students.
"There's two ways you can lower the achievement gap," Rainwater said. "You can either raise the people who are lower or lower the people who are higher. We've been real deliberate about trying to maintain what is a very high performing school district for non-low income kids. And our data would show that we continue to be able to do that."
School district spokesman Ken Syke said the number of students who have limited proficiency in English has increased significantly in the district in the last few years and went up almost 3 percentage points this year, from 14.3 to 17.1 percent. Based on federal requirements, those students, generally from low-income families, are not given the opportunity to take the tests in their native language.
"There can be no accommodation (with reading tests), that student is graded the same as a student whose English is their native language," Syke said.
Accommodation is not provided for the reading portions of the test, but translation scripts are offered to Spanish and Hmong-speaking students for math, science and social studies test items.
This school year, 43 percent of students in the Madison Metropolitan School District were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches due to their family's income level. That is an almost 18 percentage point spike compared to the 25 percent of students eligible in 2001.
The testing is required based on the federal No Child Left Behind Law accountability standards, and at some point in June, school officials will learn where their schools rank in regard to federal requirements. If goals aren't met, schools and the district will face sanctions.
Statewide, students scored about the same on the statewide tests in reading and math this year.
Results showed that reading scores for elementary, middle and high school grades all remained unchanged this year compared to last. Math scores increased one point in the elementary grades, dropped one point in middle grades and dropped two points in 10th grade.
The most widely used benchmark to assess a district's success on a given test is to combine the percentages of students who score at the "proficient" and "advanced" levels as opposed to the "basic" or "minimal" levels.
But when looking at the three-year trend, math scores were up for elementary and middle school students and down in 10th grade. Reading scores were constant over the three years.
State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster was encouraged by the results, saying there are some positive trends, but adding that the focus must remain on closing achievement gaps.
While the gap between minority students and whites narrowed in many groups over the past three years, it still remains significant.
When looking at all students tested in math, 82 percent of whites this year were proficient or advanced on the tests. That compared with just 74 percent of Asian students, 62 percent of American Indians, 56 percent of Hispanics and 40 percent of blacks.
However, all of those minority groups narrowed the gap between their scores and white students from three years ago.
This year, in reading, 88 percent of whites were proficient or advanced. Asians were next at 74 percent, followed by American Indians at 73 percent, Hispanics at 65 percent and blacks at 56 percent.
Asian and Hispanic students narrowed the achievement gap over the past three years. It was unchanged for black students and the gap worsened slightly for American Indians.
Those groups experiencing an achievement gap also had higher rates of poor students. Thirty-three percent of Wisconsin students tested are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced lunch.
Black students had the highest percentage of poverty students at 76 percent followed by Hispanics at 73 percent, American Indians at 61 percent, Asians at 55 percent and whites at 22 percent.
Although they're dealing with difficult economic times, Deputy State Superintendent Tony Evers said districts, schools and administrators across the state are making strong efforts to invest in programming that is narrowing achievement gaps, including smaller class sizes and implementation of 4-year-old kindergarten.
"Overall there is no question in my mind that districts are attending to this problem and working hard to overcome the achievement gaps," Evers said.
"The good thing is there is some small narrowing, and the flip side is there is much more work to do. I think our schools are up to the task of working hard to close that gap. ... We feel good about the efforts and that it's paying off in very small ways right now. But we anticipate as time goes on that we will see an even greater closing of those gaps."
File photo
Madison students' test scores lagged behind Wisconsin peers in the most recent statewide exams.
