ISAT scores are inching up

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Last spring, students in third, fifth, sixth and eighth grades took the Illinois Standards Achievement Test in reading and mathematics, while students in fourth and seventh grades were tested in reading, mathematics and science.

Across the state, the number of students meeting or exceeding state standards across the state continued to inch up, climbing from last year’s 78.7 percent to this year’s 79.1 percent.

Of the 12 districts with elementary schools in Bureau County, five schools improved their scores, with the biggest jump achieved by Cherry, which nudged Neponset out of the county’s top spot. All but three school districts, Leepertown, LaMoille and DePue, were above the state average. Only the DePue School District failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), due to the scores in the category of reading.

How did the elementary schools in Bureau County measure up?

Cherry

Cherry’s scores saw the largest increase in the county, as the number of students meeting or exceeding standards increased from 87.4 percent to 95.2 percent. This came on top of last year, when Cherry’s students saw the largest drop, falling from 95.6 in 2006. Individual class scores are not released for privacy reasons when fewer than 10 students take the test in each class, but of the individual class scores that were released, 100 percent of the third-graders met or exceeded standards in math, as did all of the seventh-graders in both reading and science.

Neponset

Neponset students slipped to second place in the county this year, despite increasing the number of students meeting or exceeding standards from 92.3 percent to 94.4. Every single fourth-grader achieved that goal in both math and science, as did all of the eighth-graders on the math portion of the test.

Bureau Valley

Bureau Valley scores continued their upwards motion, raising the number of students meeting or exceeding state standards from 87.3 percent to 89.8 percent, and climbing into the third-place position in the county. Reading scores continued to lag behind in all of the grades tested, but the math and science scores registered consistently high, close to the top scores across the county.

Ladd

Students in Ladd also improved their scores, moving from 83 percent meeting or exceeding state standards to 86.6 percent, and climbing from the seventh highest scores in the county to the fourth highest. Eighth-graders led the pack, with 95.7 percent meeting or exceeding standards in math, closely followed by the fourth-graders, with 95.2 percent achieving that goal in math.

Reading scores trailed math scores in all but the seventh grade, where 92.0 percent of the students met or exceeded standards in both reading and math. The lowest score was the sixth-grade reading score, with only 68.4 percent meeting or exceeding standards.

Malden

Malden’s scores rebounded after slipping slightly last year, climbing from 80.6 percent of the students meeting or exceeding state standards to 86.2 percent. Malden’s fourth-graders performed especially well in two categories, with 100 percent of the students meeting or exceeding in math, and 91.7 percent in science. Their reading scores weren’t quite as high, with only 75.0 percent of the seventh-graders achieving that goal.

Ohio

Rounding out this year’s top six is Ohio, which slipped a notch from last year’s fifth place. The percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards dropped slightly from 87.1 percent to 85.5 percent. This followed three years of considerable increases, including a 17.6 percentage jump in 2006.

Due to the small size of the classes, individual class scores were only released for the third- and seventh-graders. Both classes had 100 percent of the students meeting or exceeding the standards in math, but the numbers plummeted in reading, with only 69.2 of the third-graders and 50 percent of the seventh-graders achieving that score.

The remaining six schools will be featured in the next edition of the BCR.

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