BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
The results of Florida’s first year of progress monitoring in English language arts and mathematics have been released, and they show how far students were able to move from the beginning to the end of the year.
They also show the percentage of students who were performing at or below grade level on the third and final exam.
The Department of Education swapped the end-of-year Florida Standards Assessment for English and math for the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, or FAST test. FAST is three tests in both English and math that assess what students know at the beginning, middle and end of the school year.
Florida also transitioned to a new set of standards this past year — the Benchmark for Excellent Student Thinking, or BEST content standards. The first test of these standards for grade levels 3-10 in English and 3-8 in math took place at the beginning of the school year to provide a baseline for teachers to track progress with the standards for each grade level. The third test at the end of the year measured student mastery of the standards. (End-of-course exams are also given to Algebra 1 and geometry students.)
A familiar way to measure performance was carried over — the Level 1–5 achievement levels, which are based on the total points scored. Scoring high enough for Level 5 represents mastery of the content with a high likelihood of excelling in the next grade level or course. In the middle, a Level 3 is grade-level performance which may require additional support in the next grade. Level 1 is the bottom — inadequate performance with a high likelihood that substantial support will be needed to move forward.
The scores below for English and math show growth from the first administration of the test to the third. Listed are the percentages of students who scored Level 3 (grade level) or above for local counties as well as the state average.
The second set of numbers are also separated by grade level. They compare the achievement level on the final test — the test measuring mastery. You can compare the percentage of students who scored at grade level or above (L3+) to the number who scored at the bottom (L1).
For example, Clay County had a higher percentage at or above grade level in each grade group than the state average for English and math. That was true of Union County, too, most of the time.
Bradford showed progress with higher percentages in the younger grades. For English, the percentage at or above grade level dropped to 31% at sixth grade and continued lower until the 10th grade jumped back up to 37%. Progress was still demonstrated from the first to the last test. However, grades six through 10 had a higher percentage of students at Level 1 than at Level 3 or above. For eighth grade, 50% of students scored at Level 1.
In Union County, the percentage scoring Level 3 or above on English fell below 50% at fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth grades, with seventh grade at 39%. Almost as many students scored at Level 1.
The smaller schools with fewer students at Lawtey and McRae charted most of the high scores. More than 60% of Lawtey Elementary students scored Level 3 or above on English and math. More than 70% of its fourth and fifth grade students were high scorers.
Often on the math test, grade level or better performance charted in the single digits on the baseline test but skyrocketed by the end of the year. Only 2% of Union fourth-graders scored Level 3 or higher on the math test in the fall. By the spring, that was 69%.
Again, while still demonstrating progress through the year, Bradford’s math performance struggled at the middle school, with lower percentages at Level 3 or above. There were as many or more students scoring at Level 1. Progress was still impressive, however. Only 3% of eighth-graders scored at or above grade level at the beginning of the year compared to 35% at the end of the year.
Overall, many more students across the region performed better on math than English based on the higher achievement levels reported.
(Note on charts: Union has one elementary, middle and high school, so the results are presented by county, not school. The same is true of Bradford’s middle and high schools.)
