Rochester School Committee Chairman Sharon Hartley wasn’t as optimistic about the 2019 MCAS scores as Rochester Memorial School Principal Derek Medeiros was during his MCAS presentation on December 5, leading to a debate over what indicates progress and what indicates stagnation.
Medeiros highlighted his “points of pride” with the school’s performance in the MCAS higher than the state’s average; however, without reaching the targets this year that were set based on performance last year, progress appears to regress, although overall, students performed almost the same as they did last year “at a very high level,” said Medeiros.
“When you get to that ceiling, you have years of fluctuation,” Medeiros explained. “The ceiling gets more difficult to get to, but that’s a good problem to have.”
The ceiling to which Medeiros referred has to do with student growth and progress. Last year during the first year of the state’s new online ‘MCAS 2.0,’ RMS as a whole scored a 506 in ELA, reaching its target in specific areas that put RMS into the “meeting expectations” proficiency category. This year, RMS scored a 505 in ELA, “Which is a very high score, which is great,” said Medeiros – a point less than last year, however.
“We didn’t get as many points as last year because we didn’t exceed last year’s score,” continued Medeiros.
The overall performance of students looks like it took a significant dip, as Medeiros put it, but that is because the students progressed to such heights last year, making it more difficult to outperform themselves this year to reach new target points.
Superintendent Doug White explained, “We basically stayed at the same level; therefore, you don’t get those quality points and move yourself up… The accountability number doesn’t go up if you don’t meet the target.” For example, he said, if RMS scored a 508 in ELA – higher than last year – but the target score was 510, then the measure of progress would appear to dip compared to the level to which it rose the prior years.
“Our students didn’t go backward, they stayed the same,” said White. “This [tells us] what we need to do next to push them further.”
In the growth category for ELA, RMS scored a 75 compared to last year’s 80 – “a very impressive number,” said Medeiros, just above the state’s average.
In Math, RMS as a whole scored a 502, just above the state average of 499. In science, RMS again stayed above the state average with the identical scores of 502 and 499, respectively.
The school’s lowest-performing students gained significant strides, scoring 75 percent in achievement and 75 percent in growth, higher than last year.
Moving forward with this data, Mederios said he plans to continue the school’s current reading program and continue with the expansion of Chromebook use in each grade. The continued daily use of computers is also important, he said, since the test is given online and computer proficiency is critical. The school’s use of “flex-time” to target struggling students was a success as well, he said, and will continue.
School Committee Chairman Sharon Hartley, however, was not inspired by the results or Medeiros’ response to them.
“What I didn’t see in this report was any sign of analysis (of the data)… By now there should have been some analysis,” said Hartley. “What are you doing with the assessments?” She asked Medeiros, “Have we done that analysis…? What changes are we going to make? I would expect to see that in this report.”
Hartley turned to Medeiros’ list of action items and noted the times where certain actions from last year were to be “continued” into the next year.
“We know that if we continue doing the same thing, we get the same results,” said Hartley. “That means to me that we’re doing…”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” said Medeiros, “but I don’t see how any of this means that we don’t do that analysis.”
Hartley pointed to where the action items stated: “Continue, continue, continue to do the things we’re doing… There should be some [new] things here,” she said. “Do things a little differently, and therefore we’re going to… improve things.”
Medeiros said continuing to use Chromebooks is an obvious “continue,” and the reading plan the school created two years ago was effective in giving the school that boost last year, and so should be “continued.”
Medeiros reminded Hartley that last year was a baseline and this year was only the second year of the MCAS 2.0.
“We performed so high in the ‘low performing, high needs’ category across most schools in the state,” said Medeiros, “so, yes, we’re going to continue to use flex-time to intervene… to close gaps and, in enrichment, stand out because we’ve seen some great successes…”
Hartley responded, “I’m afraid you missed what I was saying.” But without elaborating on that, Hartley continued, “I’ll move on, but you missed but I was saying.
“I would want points of pride to be items that are shining lights of improvement,” continued Hartley. She pointed to the school’s scores that are “slightly above 500,” the cut-off point for proficiency. “You might say it’s slightly above average,” said Hartley. “To me, as a school committee member wanting this school to be a shining light, it’s not a point of pride.”
She said it would be better if Medeiros used “points of progress” instead of “points of pride,” and added, “But I don’t think you have pride over being just barely above average, and that’s what… all of these are basically telling us.”
At that, Hartley yielded the floor to the other school committee members.
School Committee member Anne Fernandes looked to the just-above-500 scores and said, “It’s good, but you want to get better… We’re glad that… there’s an improvement from last year… but we want to go forward. Meeting the target is not enough.”
White intervened, saying, “I think what we have to realize is that the state is working on the test and working on the feedback that we are getting… The cut off level is going to change every single year because they feel that our tests in previous times is not meeting what other… national tests are showing.”
What was shown in these results, White explained, is that RMS students are meeting a quota of above average.
RMS teacher Tara Nelson, from where she sat in the room, saw things differently. She said students and teachers deserve “kudos” for exceeding the 500 mark.
“Be proud,” said Nelson. “Sitting here analyzing data after data about the test, like – sorry, I’m just not into teaching for the test.
“I don’t really look at that 500 number,” she continued, speaking now as a parent. “I look at their report cards… what their teachers are telling me, what they bring home, what they’re doing with their learning… Those are things we need to focus more on. I don’t know – I feel like 500, average, is good…”
What Medeiros pointed out was the jump last year from non-proficiency to proficiency.
“To me, that’s more important than looking at the 500 piece. When we perform as high as we do and, being in the 71st percentile in the state, student growth is something that we tend to look more at than a score of 500.”
Hartley re-joined the discussion, saying, “I’m a lifelong educator, so – education is more complicated now than it has been, but it also is richer in many ways… In my heart and my mind, I want the school to be the very best it can be.
“Let’s talk about these things… and let’s get better,” said Hartley. “This is actually an area of expertise for me, I can help…”
Nelson said if people were to compare RMS’s scores with those of Sippican School and Mattapoisett, she pointed out that the other towns might be outperforming RMS because they have full-time enrichment where RMS does not. “So that’s just something to think about, too, when you’re comparing them.”
Hartley expressed concerns about the science portion of the MCAS where the school only received one out of four points in one area.
“That was an alarm going off that… something is not working,” said Hartley. “Your report,” she told Medeiros, “it didn’t express to me the pieces that I was concerned about.” This included not creating a slide to show progress for students with disabilities.
Medeiros reiterated that the MCAS does not capture all the growth in students’ learning.
“I chose to keep my report positive,” Medeiros said. “If you don’t know that I am a principal that constantly looks at how students perform with their teachers – hence, the professional learning community model that [Assistant Principal Charlie West] and I implemented – I’m here to tell you we’re constantly looking at that; constantly looking at ways to improve.”
RMS may have flat-lined from a performance standpoint, continued Medeiros, “But it was still a very high performing year for us, and it was last year, and we continue to look to improve every year.”
The next meeting of the Rochester School Committee is scheduled for January 9 at 6:30 pm at Rochester Memorial School.
Rochester School Committee
By Jean Perry