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Thursday, September 02, 2010
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| | Email this article • Print this article | CL Dist. science results near state averages
BY DANI STRENKE
The Chisago Lakes School District is reviewing results of the MCA II science test recently released by the Minnesota Department of Education.
The results showed better than state averages at the eighth grade and tenth grade levels, but slightly below the state average in fifth grade.
Results show 50.7 percent of Chisago Lakes High School sophomores were proficient on the test, meaning they met or exceeded state standards. The state average for tenth graders was 50 percent.
Chisago Lakes Middle School eighth graders who met or exceeded standards totalled 48.4 percent, while the state average for eighth grade was 42.6 percent.
District numbers at the fifth grade level show 44.1 percent of fifth graders were proficient, close to the state average of 45 percent. Lakeside results show 46.6 percent proficiency, while Taylors Falls Elementary results show 36.6 percent proficiency.
Taylors Falls Elementary Principal Joe Thimm said the school's primary focus this past school year was helping students improve their math skills for the math MCA II tests in the spring.
The school did not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) during the 2007-08 school year in math because of results from the free and reduced lunch subset of students. Thimm said teachers focused on utilizing programs such as Odyssey to work with those students.
"We started the program in January and had those students working with it through the end of the year," Thimm said. "Because of that, our math scores went up significantly and we made AYP."
He said it's frustrating to see the bar raised each year on the MCA II tests, particularly where special education students are concerned.
"I've talked to enough principals and they're all in agreement there are two kinds of schools - those on the AYP list and those that will be," he said.
Currently, results from the science assessment do not impact AYP for school districts.
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