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Who can we blame for not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)?
This is a complex issue. More than 60% of our students enter high school reading below 7th grade based on the Gates-MacGinitie reading test, which is given at the beginning of ninth grade. Eighty-six (86%) of students did not meet high school readiness benchmarks in reading and math on the EXPLORE exam. Beginning freshman year, the District has 32 months to prepare students to take the PSAE, the state exam for grade 11. Students complete eighth grade believing they are prepared, based on their ISAT results. The standards for ISAT are not the same as the standards for PSAE. There is no single source of blame for students not achieving. There are multiple sources of responsibility for students' learning.
Where is the problem with some of our students?
Students who enter high school not meeting benchmarks may lack skills such as:
Reading-
Determine when (e.g., first, last, before, after) or if an event occurred in uncomplicated passages
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Identify a clear main idea or purpose of paragraphs in uncomplicated literary narratives
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Locate simple details at the sentence and paragraph level in uncomplicated passages
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Identify relationships between main characters in uncomplicated literary narratives
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Recognize clear cause-effect relationships within a single sentence or paragraph in uncomplicated literary narratives
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Use context to understand basic figurative language
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Draw generalizations and conclusions about people, ideas, etc. in uncomplicated passages
- Perform common conversions (e.g., inches to feet or hours to minutes)
- Recognize equivalent fractions in lowest terms
- Solve equations in the form x+a=b, where a and b are whole numbers or decimals
- Solve routine one-step arithmetic problems (using whole numbers, fractions, and decimals) such as single-step percent
- Calculate the average, given the number of data values and the sum of the data values
- Perform computations on data from tables, charts and graphs
- Substitute whole numbers for unknown quantities to evaluate expressions
- Solve one-step equations having integer or decimal answers
- Combine like terms (e.g., 2x+5x)
- Compute the perimeter of polygons when all side lengths are given
- Compute the area of rectangles when whole number dimensions are given
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