WESTFIELD- Scores posted by Massachusetts high school students on standardized MCAS tests continue to improve, yet many graduates are still not fully prepared for the academic rigors of college, state education officials said Wednesday.
Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration touted a record high performance on the exams taken by 10th graders last spring. The percentages of students scoring proficient or higher on the tests were 91 percent for the English portion, 80 percent for math and 71 percent for science.
A passing score on MCAS, short for Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, is required for students to receive their high school diplomas. The state said 88 percent of students met the minimum requirements on their first try this year, up from 86 percent a year ago.
Despite that trend, the state’s education commissioner, Mitchell Chester, noted that 40 percent of Massachusetts public high school graduates who enroll in the state’s public colleges and universities are placed in non-credit, developmental programs to help them handle the tougher coursework.
Schools are creating new standards for college and career readiness in an effort to cope with this problem, he added.
Officials reported progress in fixing chronically underperforming public schools, announcing that 14 of 34 schools labeled as Level 4 underperforming schools in 2010 had been removed from the list after participating in a three-year turnaround program monitored by the state.
Of the remaining 20 schools on the 2010 Level 4 list, one has since closed and four — two in Boston and one each in Holyoke and New Bedford — are in danger of slipping to Level 5, the lowest performance tier in the state’s ranking system, officials said.
Level 5 schools are subject to a takeover by the state.
“Schools that once were on life support are now thriving. But even as we celebrate we know there are more schools that need our support and we pledge to be there to lift them up, said Matthew Malone, Patrick’s education secretary.
MCAS test scores for Westfield High School, Westfield Vocational-Technical, Southwick-Granville-Tolland Regional High School, and Gateway Regional High School are a mixed bag.
In the Gateway Regional School District, Littleville Elementary School slipped from a Level 2 to a Level 3 school, making the district a Level 3 district. This occurred, despite the fact that Littleville made substantial improvements on their test scores last year.
Gateway Regional High School has been, and continues to be a Level 1 school and the high school is one of the Commended Schools in the state for making high gains on last springs scores.
Superintendent Dr. David Hopson sees a silver lining.
“The largest improvements were seen in English Language (ELA,) as opposed to math and science,” he said of the school’s MCAS performance, and said that his teachers are meeting the needs of students on an individual basis in the district, which serves around 1,000 students from kindergarten to the twelfth grade.
“We’re looking to improve across the board,” he said. “If you meet the needs of individual students, the MCAS will take care of themselves.”
Southwick-Granville-Tolland Superintendent Dr. John Barry said that his district’s Composite Performance Index, or CPI, was “pretty consistent” and above the state average in many areas.
“Some math scores didn’t work out quite as well,” he said. “But the English Language indicators were solid, and the high school remained a level one school.”
Barry said that the district’s Student Growth Percentiles, a measure of how much progress a student makes compared to the state average, weren’t quite what he had hoped for, but the district of around 1,800 students is being led by a solid 2013 performance from STGRHS.
“The high school has pretty good indicators,” Barry said, but said more work needs to be done. “We’ve got to do analysis with the improvement indicators and continue working with the core curriculum.”
While Westfield Vocational-Technical High School remained a level three school as one of the lowest performing 20 percent of schools in the state, Principal Stefan Czaporowski believes the school is making significant progress.
“We showed improvement,” he said. “We scored an 84 percent on the ELA and our CPI was at 95 percent. We’re doing better than we have in the past.”
He said that the school was in the sixth percentile of schools in the Commonwealth last year, barely avoiding level four status. However, 2013 saw Voc-Tech jump five percentage points to the eleventh percentile, an increase which Czaporowski credits to the curriculum vocational students take.
“Our kids are only in academic courses for half a year, every other week that they aren’t in shop,” he said. “Sixty-seven percent of our students are advanced or proficient in math.”
Compared to other regional vocational-technical schools such as Smith Voke in Northampton and Putnam in Springfield, Westfield outperformed them by two and eleven percent, respectively.
Czaporowski said that having less academic time has forced faculty to address more of the English, math and science curriculum in their respective shops.
“We’ve been integrating math into more shops,” he said. “Kids can do the math in their shops, but it was proving harder for them on paper. We started more of the integrating last year and I’m pumped about the results.”
“I’ve done the math and, for kids who are getting only 140 days of academics as opposed to 180 at non-vocational high schools, it’s been one of our best years,” Czaporowski said. “I’m excited, and the staff and students deserve a lot of credit.”
At Westfield High School, Principal Jonathan Carter is ecstatic over his student’s performance on the test, and the school’s jump from the third to the second tier is a testament to the students and faculty, as well as to now-retired Principal Raymond Broderick.
“I’d like to congratulate Ray, because he left WHS in the right direction,” Carter said. “He should be proud of those results. It’s a legacy we all hope to leave behind someday.”
To Carter, the big takeaway from the school’s MCAS results were in English language arts, where all subgroups achieved above their targets.
“Our student growth percentiles were mixed results, but several subgroups improved above their target levels,” he said. “But math scores improved across the board.”
Two student body groups, English language learners and students with disabilities, improved their overall performances on the test, which Carter sees as a positive development.
Carter’s goals for the upcoming year are straightforward.
“To narrow each achievement gap with each subgroup,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be done everywhere… Continue moving in the direction we’re on.”
Westfield Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Scallion is also enthused with the progress of the schools in her district.
“We’re very excited,” she said of the district’s performance. “Our initiatives are paying off.”
She complimented the efforts of the city’s two high schools, especially Czaporowski’s work at Voc-Tech.
“There have been great gains made at Westfield Voc-Tech,” she said. “If they keep making the progress they made this year next year, they will be out of level three.”
Scallion said that the work being done in the elementary grades is going to set up future successes on the MCAS and other standardized tests for, despite the improvements being made throughout the Whip City’s schools, the district is still ranked as level three district, a distinction she believes can be shed by continuing to stress English, math and the sciences in the early school years.
“Where we have to get out of level three is by shoring up our programs in the early grades,” she said.
