IRSD test scores bring optimism

By Jonathan Starkey
Staff Reporter

Results from the 2005 Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) tests in science and social studies for fourth- and sixth-grade students were returned about two weeks ago. They showed that Indian River School District students continue to make progress and stay well above most state averages.

The fourth-grade tests assessed the students on what they learned from kindergarten through third grade. And, although science and social studies scores do not directly affect the district’s national progress or rating, the scores do affect the district’s State Progress Rating and help officials develop a more effective curriculum. Science and social studies tests are only taken in the fourth, sixth, eighth and 11th grades.

“Science and social studies are very language oriented (subjects),” said Sandy Smith, Indian River School District’s supervisor of secondary education and former five-year district testing coordinator.

“Our reading scores are some of the best in the state. You see a direct correlation.”

Nationally, the No Child Left Behind program only rates schools on math, reading and writing tests, which will now be taken every year from third to 10th grade.

Like those more-important tests, students will now be graded on a point system in the science and social studies tests, which gives a student a grade of 1 to 5 based on a scaled grading system of the test.

A grade of 1 means a student scored well below the standard by scoring less than 285 for fourth graders — or 285 for sixth graders — on the test. Any score less than 300 points earns a student a 2 on the test, which means they scored below the standard. And any score of 300 or more means the student met or exceeded the standard, according to the Delaware Department of Education.

Of Indian River’s fourth graders, 97 percent met or exceeded the standard on the science tests, compared to the 92 percent state average. As was expected, the sixth-grade students did well, but not as well as their younger counterparts because “everything gets harder” in higher grades, Smith said.

Still, 87 percent of Indian River’s sixth graders met or exceeded the standard on the science test, compared to an 80 percent state average. Indian River has improved by 20 percent in that category since 2000, when only 67 percent of the sixth graders met the standard.

The social studies scores were not as good. It’s another slowly upward-trending area, according to Smith, because there isn’t as much of an emphasis placed on social studies in Delaware as there is on science. But Indian River still surpassed most state averages. Of Indian River fourth graders, 80 percent met or exceeded the standard compared to a state average of 65 percent. Only 66 percent of sixth graders met the standard on the social studies test, though — but that number is up from 51 percent in 2000; 60 percent of Delaware students met the standard on the sixth-grade social studies test.

So, the district’s scores are better than the state’s, but they are not beyond improvement, said Dr. Susan Bunting, Indian River’s director of instruction.

“It confirms our need to continue to work on a social studies curriculum,” Bunting said. She emphasized that one of the goals is to develop a curriculum that reaches across a diverse amount of lessons taught about a similar subject. When teaching about the Vietnam and Revolutionary wars, for example, teachers can indicate the causes of a war that may be constant, though the wars are different, she said.

“We’ve been working on that,” Bunting added. “We just need to continue.”

Southern Delaware School of the Arts’ (SDSA) scores stood out from the rest on last year’s social studies testing results. Of the fourth grade students from the Selbyville school, 90 percent met or exceeded the standard — a number matched by Frankford Elementary students and outdone by East Millsboro’s 96 percent.

But in sixth grade, SDSA’s 92 percent was more than 25 percent above Selbyville Middle School’s scores, which were the closest to it among the three other Indian River schools in the category.

That SDSA number in sixth-grade social studies was up from 71 percent last year. But it might not reflect a great improvement, Smith said. It might, rather, reflect on the amount of students that took the test this year as opposed to last.

“They had a very small class,” Smith said. “Four or five children can make your percentages look a lot different.”

Of SDSA’s fourth-grade students, 100 percent met or exceeded the standard on the science testing scores, which were considerably higher district- and state-wide than the social studies scores. No school in the district had fewer than 93 percent of students meet the standard on the 2005 test in fourth grade.

On the sixth-grade tests, 86 percent or more students met or exceeded the standard in every district school. Of SDSA’s sixth graders, 96 percent met the standard on the science test. And, although there is still room for improvement on all of the tests, Bunting said, the district’s scores are, once again, leading to optimism.

“Our teachers feel that they’re making efforts that are paying off,” she said. “We’re making progress and that’s very rewarding.”