By BOB OLIVER
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN — The Michigan Educational Assessment Program results are in, and Dearborn Public Schools has shown improvement in more than 80 percent of the testing areas.
As part of the MEAP, 18 tests were given to students from third to eighth grade last October covering five subjects, though not every grade tested in all five subjects.
DPS Director of Assessment and Evaluation Kathleen Klee provided the results to the school board at its March 10 meeting.
“We had wonderful results and they show definite growth over the last year,” Klee said. “Across all grades, our scores are higher than both the county and state averages.”
In math and reading — the only two test subjects given to all six grade levels — every test score improved with the exception of third-grade reading, which Supt. Brian Whiston said is down in every district tested across the state.
Seventh-grade math and eighth-grade reading, which climbed 7 percent each to 45 and 70 percent, respectively, were notable improvements, but the biggest came from fourth-grade writing, which jumped by 10 points to 59 percent of students being labeled proficient or advanced.
Science scores also improved by 3 percent while social studies scores were down by less than two points for sixth-graders.
Whiston said the district was even with or better than the state average in many areas.
“We increased in 15 of 18 areas in one year while the state increased in 14 of 18,” Whiston said. “So we’re a little ahead of the state in terms of improvement.”
Trustee James Schoolmaster said the growth in writing over the last year was significant.
“A 1 percent rise could be 15 or 20 students in one of our schools,” Schoolmaster said. “That’s big right there but we have some schools that saw 2 and 3 percent hikes in subjects. I applaud the teachers for all of their hard work.”
Whiston said the state wants every district to improve between 1 to 3 percent a year.
“We were up 10 or 12 points in some areas,” Whiston said. “That’s unbelievable. That’s considerably higher than expectations in one year.”
Klee said the numbers are going in the right direction but more work needed to be done.
“While we are pleased with our results, we continue to strive for improved learning for all of our students,” Klee said.
Whiston said the state looks for incremental improvements every year and puts out an accountability scorecard each summer to show how students in different schools are growing academically.
He said the MEAP results the school was going through included all students, though the accountability card only includes test results from students who have been in the district for at least the last academic year.
Trustee Mary Lane thanked the faculty and students for their hard work and lamented the fact that the test results took five months to get back to the district, which she said makes it harder for them to evaluate the results and make adjustments while the students are still in that grade level.
(Bob Oliver can be reached at [email protected].)