FWISD 2008 TAKS Scores Show Improvement across the Board

Fort Worth ISD’s scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) continue to trend in a positive direction, with:

Significant Increase in Recognized Schools

According to TAKS results, FWISD has doubled the number of recognized schools this year. At the same time, the District’s number of academically unacceptable schools has been cut by a third, compared to the number of schools that received this designation last year.

Four middle schools have joined the ranks of TEA Recognized schools.


A Note about Changes in Testing and Reporting

The year 2008 brought major changes in the testing of Texas students served by special education. In previous years, special education students could take a state-developed alternative assessment at or below grade level based on their current needs and their passing standard was set by a special committee. In 2008 the state-developed alternative assessment was eliminated and the majority of students served by special education took a version of the grade level TAKS test with the same passing standard as regular education students. Additionally, the scores of these first-time TAKS testers will be included in 2008 state accountability calculations for science, social studies, and all grade 11 subjects. The scores of these special education students will be included in accountability for all grades and subjects in 2010; however, all data released by TEA this spring incorporated these data for public consumption. These wide-sweeping changes and the myriad of possible ways to report the resulting data can be confusing. Additionally, including or omitting the scores of these new TAKS testers impacts the percent passing and related gains/losses from last year to this year.

For example, in Grade 5 Science, a 5% point gain results when comparing similar students from 2007 to 2008. With the addition of students served by special education taking the new TAKS version, there is only a 2% point gain from 2007 to 2008.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

Key Gains for FWISD Elementary Schools

Among elementary students, almost all accountability areas have either improved or remained stable.

There were substantial increases (2 percentage points or more) from 2007 to 2008 in the percent of students meeting the passing standard in:

There’s also strong evidence that District students are showing continuous improvement in Mathematics. The really good news is that the percentage of students meeting the standard consistently increases as students move from one grade level to the next. That includes,

Gains In all Content Areas for Middle School Students

Among middle schools, there were substantial increases from 2007 to 2008 in the percent of students meeting the passing standard for:

High School Students Show Progress, Especially 10th and 11th Grades

There were increases from 2007 to 2008 in the percent of students meeting the passing standard for the majority of accountability subgroups, content areas and grade levels:

There is also strong evidence for continuous improvement in both Reading and Math. The percent of students meeting the standard consistently increases as students move from one grade level to the next.

High school state accountability subgroups at each grade level are also projected to meet or exceed the standard with the exception of:

Achievement Gap Still a Concern

Although some achievement gaps are closing (e.g. 8th grade reading), there are still gaps in performance between white and African-American students and white and Hispanic students, particularly in math and science.

Of concern are:

CAMPUS RATINGS

Overall Success When Looking at All Accountability Measures

Each campus must attain the state’s minimum performance standard in every subject tested, and for every student group (All Students, African American, Hispanic, White, and Economically Disadvantaged), to be rated at least Acceptable.

In the case of Fort Worth schools, there are more than 1,588 such accountability measures or cells that must be met. In 2008, it is projected that FWISD students met or exceeded the standards in 1,546 of those measures, for a success rate of 97 percent.

“Fort Worth has a very diverse student population. We must succeed on all state accountability measures, compared to suburban or rural school districts that must meet fewer measures,” says Superintendent Melody Johnson. “That’s because they don’t have enough student groups to make all of the measures count. We do.”


State Accountability Ratings

As we mentioned, there are 34 Recognized and Exemplary schools for 2007-2008, significantly more than the 19 high performing campuses last year. There are 72 campuses that are Academically Acceptable and there is a significant decrease in the number of Academically Unacceptable campuses (from 15 to 10).

Scores overall were stable or increased significantly at almost every grade level in every tested content area, and 19 campuses missed Recognized or Exemplary status solely due to science.


District Picture

As a district, at least 74% of ALL students are passing Reading, Writing, and Social Studies at all grade levels. More significantly, 70% or more of all student populations are passing Reading, Writing, or Social Studies.

Reading: Noteworthy for 2008 is that 86% of elementary campuses and 87% of middle school campuses had Reading scores at the Recognized level or above for all student groups.

Mathematics: Scores of ALL students in Math improved in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, with the greatest gains at grade 6 (7% points) and grade 8 (19% points with 2 administrations in 2008); scores in grades 3, 4, 5, 11 remained stable.

Science: While increases of 6% to 13% points for ALL students in Science at all tested grade levels (5, 8, 10, and 11) are encouraging, additional work remains as only 48% of ALL students met the passing standard at grade 10 and only 35% and 38% of African American students met the passing standard at grades 8 and 10 respectively.

Social Studies and Writing scores remain high, 80% or more, for ALL students at all tested grade levels.


Federal Accountability Ratings

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

At the District level, ALL students and each student group in grades 3, 4, and 5 met or exceeded the state Academically Acceptable performance standard in Reading, Math, Writing, and Science.

Reading: Elementary Reading scores remain strong (with nice gains at grade 5 for all groups. The only decrease (2% points) was at grade 3 for African American students who maintained 84% despite the decrease.

Spanish Reading: Student performance remains strong with 90% of ALL students and each student group meeting the passing standard again this year.

Mathematics: Overall passing rates remain well above the state standard for Academically Acceptable with 72% of ALL students passing at 3rd grade, 76% at 4th grade, and 85% at 5th grade. The only loss was 2% points for grade 5 African American students (67% passing). Hispanic students had 1% to 3% point gains, and grade 3 students tested in Spanish had nice gains of 5-6 % points.

Writing: Scores in elementary writing exceeded the Recognized level for ALL students and each student group (87% to 96%). Additionally, every student group saw gains of 1 to 2 percentage points.

Science: ALL students and each student group in 5th grade Science exceeded the state standard for Academically Acceptable by at least 14% and had gains (5 to 9 percentage points) from 2007 to 2008.


MIDDLE SCHOOL

At the district level, ALL students and each student group in grades 6, 7, and 8 met or exceeded the state Recognized standard in Reading, Writing, and Social Studies. In Math and Science, ALL students and each student group except grade 8 African American Science (at 38%) met or exceeded the state Academically Acceptable standard.

Reading: Scores in middle school reading were strong with gains (2 to 14 percentage points) in all student groups except grade 7 White (slight decrease (-1%) to 91% passing. The highest gains were at grade 8 which included 2 administrations for the first time in 2008. At grade 8, ALL students and African American students increased 12 percentage points, while Hispanic and Economically-disadvantaged students increased 14 percentage points.

Mathematics: There were gains (2 to 21 percentage points) for ALL students and in every student group in grades 6, 7, and 8; except grade 7 Hispanic and White which remained stable at 62% and 78% respectively. As with Reading, the largest gains were at grade 8 with two administrations in 2008: ALL students and African American students gained 19 percentage points, while Hispanic and Economically-disadvantaged students gained 21 percentage points.

Writing: Scores on middle school Writing for every student group far exceeded the state Recognized standard with 84% to 93% passing.

Science: ALL students and each student group in 8th grade Science exceeded the state standard for Academically Acceptable except the African American group which missed the standard by 7 percentage points with 38% passing. While much work is still to be done in Science, it was encourage to see gains (9 to 16 percentage points) from 2007 to 2008 in ALL students and each student group with the greatest gain in African American Science (from 22% to 38%).

Social Studies: Passing rates (77% - 94%) for middle school Social Studies increased in all groups (5 to 12 percentage points) to exceed the state Recognized standard.


HIGH SCHOOL

At district level, ALL students and each student group in grades 9, 10, and 11 met or exceeded the state Academically Acceptable standard in Reading/ELA and Social Studies. At grade 11, ALL students and each student group met or exceeded the state Academically Acceptable standard in every subject.

Reading: In grades 9, 10, and 11, ALL students and each student group remained stable or showed gains (1-10 percentage points) except for grade 9 Economically-disadvantaged (-2%). The largest gains were at grade 10 with Hispanic (10% points), Economically-disadvantaged (8% points) and ALL students (7% points).

Mathematics: ALL students in grades 10 and 11 met or exceeded the state Academically Acceptable standard. However, ALL students in grade 9 as well as the Hispanic, African American, and Economically-disadvantaged groups in grades 9 and 10 failed to meet the Academically Acceptable standard despite gains by almost every group.

Science: Although grade 10 students did not meet the state Academically Acceptable standard in the Hispanic, African American, and Economically-disadvantaged student groups, all student groups in grade 10 and 11 had gains (2%-10% points) with the greatest gains at grade 10. Continued work in science is needed to increase these passing rates so that ALL students and each student group meets and exceeds the standard.

Social Studies: At grade 11, all student groups exceeded the state Recognized standard. There were gains (2 to 8 percentage points) for ALL students and in every student group in grades 10 and 11.

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