PARCC scores are in: How did metro-east schools fare?

It’s the first year for a new standardized test for Illinois schoolchildren, and many educators are still trying to figure out who made the grade.

But one thing is clear: Fewer students in the metro-east and across the state are “proficient,” defined as the percent who met or exceeded state standards, on the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test, also known as PARCC.

While the old ISAT test often saw as many as 95 percent of students meeting or exceeding standards, the highest-scoring school in St. Clair, Madison, Monroe or Clinton counties was Damiansville Elementary in Clinton County, with a proficiency score of 69.2 percent, and the lowest-performing school was Lovejoy Elementary in Brooklyn with a proficiency rate of zero.

The PARCC test reviewed English language arts and math, and provided five levels of success compared to state standards and expectations: exceeds standards, met, approaching, partially met and did not meet standards. PARCC replaces the ISAT and PSAE tests that formed Illinois’ primary method of assessing K-12 schools for many years and was administered to students in third- through eighth-grade and in high school.

Statewide, 33 percent of students met or exceeded standards for their grade level based on this assessment. Students falling within those two categories are considered on track for the next grade level or course, according to ISBE.

Most area schools received their PARCC results in the last couple of weeks, and several schools are sending individual results home with students on Friday. Just as taking the test required a learning curve last spring, interpreting the results is a similar undertaking.

PARCC is a different kind of test than the standardized multiple-choice exams that measured students’ ability to recall facts; most school leaders refer to PARCC as a “performance-based” test, focusing not only on the accurate answers, but how the student arrived at that answer and is able to defend it. It puts a heavy emphasis on critical thinking and writing.

But that isn’t the only change; many school leaders said it was a big switch to taking the test on a computer rather than on pencil and paper. Even though young people are more likely to be computer-savvy, several educators cited additional distractions and changes of focus in a computer-based test. And not all schools opted to test with computers; some did a mix of computerized and paper tests, and some stuck solely with paper and pencil.

PARCC launched as the state developed a new set of standards for learning, and the bar for meeting state expectations was raised, educators said.

St. Clair/Monroe County

The top-scoring school in St. Clair County was Shiloh Elementary with 65.5 percent, and in Monroe County it was Waterloo High School at 68.5 percent. Some higher-performing schools in several counties said they did well because they’ve been realigning their curriculum to the now-tested standards since 2010.

“Whenever the state adopted the standards in 2010, we immediately began working on them,” said John Schmieg, curriculum coordinator of Waterloo Community Unit School District 5. “If our scores are better than others in the area, it’s because we put a lot of hard work into them, maybe a little sooner than others.”

Waterloo scored 57 percent as a district on meeting or exceeding standards, the highest scoring district in Monroe County. Other factors that may have impacted the score, Schmieg said, is that Waterloo is a unit district and students have been seeing Common Core state standards for up to five years, at least under some form of the transition. Other factors were paper testing and the decision to test the ninth-grade students at the high-school level.

“Our Algebra 1 and ELA 1 courses were the first that we overhauled and matched first to common core, that had been developed for about three years,” he said. “We wanted to get baseline data on them.”

He said Waterloo will take the online test this year; they did not last year because, “We just didn’t feel the PARCC system was functioning well enough.”

The state allowed high school districts to choose which group of students to test based on courses they have taken. Some districts opted to test students who were typically juniors while others tested mainly freshmen.

Those variables — online versus paper and which students are tested — mean that any comparison from one district to another is inherently unfair, said O’Fallon Township District 203 Superintendent Darcy Benway.

“We’re playing football, and they’re playing basketball. It’s not a fair comparison,” she said.

O’Fallon High School had a composite score of 45.8 percent, among the higher scores in the county. Schools had the option of testing ELA 1 and Algebra 1, or ELA 3 and Algebra 2 or 3 equivalent. O’Fallon chose to test the first level, typically freshman students.

Benway said that difference, as well as testing on paper instead of online, could allow critical scoring variations. O’Fallon decided to test on paper, because rotating students through the computer labs would have caused too much disruption to learning, she said.

The lowest-scoring school in the metro-east, Lovejoy Elementary in Brooklyn District 188, just aligned its math curriculum to the Common Core standards last year. Children tested last year had not yet had any introduction to Common Core standards in English language arts, Superintendent Henrietta Young said, the district introduced Common Core English curriculum this year.

“Last year was my first year,” Young said. “We expect to see growth. ... I don’t expect a dramatic shift (at the next assessment), but I expect to see some growth.”

Lovejoy Elementary students had zero students meeting or exceeding standards on the PARCC test in math and English Language Arts and 25 percent approached standards in ELA.

Other low-scoring schools in St. Clair County were East St. Louis High School, Lincoln Middle in East St. Louis and Katie Harper-Wright Middle School in East St. Louis, each scoring between 2 percent and 3 percent meeting or exceeding standards.

East St. Louis District 189 officials said the high school tested the Algebra 2 and English 3 students online. The district had “full implementation” of Common Core standards in the 2013-14 school year, according to an emailed statement.

Belleville District 201 Superintendent Jeff Dosier is “pleased” with how Belleville East and West students performed on the PARRC test, saying it’s “a signal that we’re on the right track.”

He pointed out that results show the achievement gap — the difference between what students of different races score on tests — shows signs of closing. Black students at District 201 met or exceeded standards at 45.7 percent and all students met or exceeded at 46.5 percent. Dosier said the statewide average for students of all races was 34.7 percent for that portion of the test.

“That’s why I’m very optimistic that our teachers are doing it right, I feel like our teachers did a really good job in preparing,” Dosier said.

District 201 tested ELA 3 and Algebra 2, because that was the initial requirement from the state. “Then later the state came out with the ability to change, but we felt like all our work in making sure our teachers knew the expectations was at that level,” said Melissa Taylor, director of curriculum at District 201.

Also, because the district takes in students from 10 feeder schools, they believed the ELA 3 and Algebra 2 reflected the contribution that the high schools made to the students’ education.

“Overall, our department chairs feel if they’ve had the opportunity to work with the kids up through their junior year, then those results best reflect their contribution,” she said. “When we look at the state average, we are very pleased at how we performed for the first year of this test. I think I can speak for all of us, it was a brand new test and a brand new format ... the first year you give an assessment, you have no idea.”

Other districts said early examination of the results did reveal some surprises.

“Prior to this, with our ISAT, math was strong and reading was weak, and that has reversed on us,” said Lou Obernuefemann, superintendent of Belle Valley School District 119. Belle Valley had a composite score of 25.3 percent, with 33.9 percent of its students meeting or exceeding ELA standards.

Obernuefemann said the district would be using a “vertical-study” approach, following individual students over the next few years.

“This is a foundational year, and with students coming in with a lack of knowledge on computer skills, and the format itself, it’s going to be two to three years of testing before we’re testing the child’s intelligence and not the test,” he said.

That long-term data is key, said Matt Klosterman, superintendent of Belleville District 118. “There’s no way to compare online and new test versus knowledge and skills until we (get), over time, some longitudinal data,” he said.

District 118 tested its third-graders online, Klosterman said, and that’s one reason the district accelerated the access to Chromebooks, to increase their comfort level with computers since more assessments would be given online.

“For third-graders, the question was on one screen, but that information was three screens before. Students were used to paper/pencil and writing answers ... there’s no way we’re going to know how much that impacted students,” he said.

Like Waterloo, District 118 began implementing the new state standards quickly, but the transition is ongoing, he said. The district purchased new math materials and textbooks for about $300,000 in 2008, Klosterman said. That curriculum was not aligned with the standards released two years later.

“Some pieces fit nicely, but there are large gaps as it relates to Common Core standards,” Klosterman said.

Superintendents are watching what’s happening nationwide, including President Barack Obama who signed a new education law on Thursday.

“When PARCC started, there were 26 states; seven at the beginning of this year, and Massachusetts just made a decision to separate themselves from PARCC,” Klosterman said. “Across the country, we’re down to six states using PARCC. What we hear is Illinois has a contract ... what will happen after that, that is completely out of our hands. But our folks are focused on ‘What do I need to do today for these students.’”

Getting results online for one district proved as difficult as taking the test online had proved for others.

“The whole thing’s a mess,” said Cahokia District 187 Superintendent Art Ryan. “I don’t have any (results).”

Ryan said students’ individual scores had arrived a couple months ago, but were quickly followed with orders not to release those. He has not had another directive yet from the state.

Madison County

While Madison County’s scores as a whole were much lower on the new test than the old ISAT, most school leaders said they expected the drop.

But Edwardsville District 7 retained its top marks; often one of the top-scoring districts in previous tests, the top five highest-scoring schools in Madison County are all from Edwardsville. Columbus Elementary had the highest marks at 60.2 percent meeting or exceeding standards, followed by Woodland Elementary, Cassens Elementary and both middle schools.

Highland Elementary saw 49.5 percent proficiency, and Maryville Elementary in Collinsville scored 46.9 percent. The three lowest-scoring schools were Madison Senior High School at 2.5 percent, Madison Junior High at 4.7 percent and Bernard Long Elementary in Madison at 7.1 percent.

Edwardsville Superintendent Lynda Andre credited early preparation and a lot of time, effort and training into aligning the district’s curriculum to the new standards, well before PARCC became the required test. It took more than three years to rewrite the instruction units to align to the new standards, Andre said, and the district had ongoing training for teachers to make sure the instruction matched the standards.

“One of the most important things we did is begin our curriculum studies … when the state adopted the new standards,” Andre said. “The (school) board places a strong priority on updated curriculum and allows us the staff and resources to implement them ... We spend an enormous amount of time developing (curricula) with professional development and the resources we need.”

PARCC also has changed significantly since it was first proposed. Initially, it was to be a test that took place in four “windows” throughout the year with immediate results, so schools could assess how a student learned over the course of the year and adjust accordingly. But two years ago, Illinois opted out of the fall round of testing due to financial reasons, Andre said, and only two testing windows remained by the time it was implemented last spring.

“It could be a response to districts’ concerns about the amount of time spent in assessment,” Andre said. “The original intent to give feedback during the school year was a good goal to have, but that was not realized.”

For Collinsville Superintendent Bob Green, that was a disappointment. He was hoping PARCC would become a way to view student growth over the year, not a “one-time snapshot.”

“My mantra has been, ‘Let’s measure growth, measure them throughout the year in a short assessment, and then teachers can intervene,’” Green said.

The lateness of the results for tests taken last year means they aren’t going to be helpful for this year, he said.

“It’s like going to the doctor in April for my blood pressure, but he doesn’t tell me what it is until December,” Green said.

He believes Illinois schools have “rushed into this” — not just a different test, but a whole different way of educating children.

“It requires teachers to teach differently and students to learn differently,” Green said. “It’s not enough just to have the answer; they have to show how they got the answer and demonstrate it. That requires different kinds of thinking and processing on the students’ part.”

Collinsville has unique challenges with a wide disparity of scores from school to school. Its highest-scoring school is Maryville Elementary with a proficiency score of 46.9, but its lowest-scoring schools are nearly tied with 12.4 percent at Kreitner Elementary and 12.3 percent at Caseyville Elementary. Collinsville High School had about 24 percent.

“We look at the differences in our clientele and adapt our methods,” Green said. “Sometimes test scores can be affected by a number of factors, by parents’ educational level or income. When you throw in poverty and other things that interfere with children’s learning, it adds to it.”

Green said Collinsville Unit 10 has established extra programs at Caseyville and Kreitner to focus on key skills, with extra emphasis for English language learners.

“It’s an ongoing effort,” he said. “This is our first go at it, the baseline where we’re starting. We’re going to do our very best to build on it and hopefully reach the goal of all or most students reaching proficiency. That’s what we’re shooting for.”

Triad Superintendent Leigh Lewis said the electronic nature of the test was “a major challenge,” and she believes the students who took it with paper and pencil may have done better simply because that is a familiar format.

Still, Triad chose to test electronically, Lewis said. “That’s where we’re moving. Kids are more savvy with using technology, but when it comes to reasoning and writing down answers to questions and composition, it’s not just communicating as you would in a conversation. It requires more cohesiveness and coherence,” she said.

Granite City also chose to test with computers, anticipating that is the way most testing will go, according to Superintendent Jim Greenwald. “It’s a work in progress,” he said.

Greenwald said he appreciates the addition of “approaching expectations” as a middle-ground score. “What has happened in the past is, you have either done well or failed, and there’s no in-between,” he said. “In the real world, you have to constantly look at methods of improvement.”

Madison County Regional Superintendent Robert Daiber said this is a “transitional period.”

“We’re all trying to get our arms around this and how we’re going to look at improving student performance,” he said. “I’d tell people, ‘Do not jump to any conclusions until a second set of data is available to compare.’ This is a new test, and it’s going to take some time for it to be reviewed and understood.”

Andre said the ISAT was an “adequate” measure of the old state standards, but it’s too soon to say whether PARCC is an accurate reflection of how well students are meeting the new, tougher standards. She said it will take a year or two with more data to determine how well the students are learning.

But Lewis said PARCC is “absolutely not” an accurate representation of student learning yet. Triad, often one of the higher-scoring districts in the previous test, had a composite proficiency score of 28.1 percent across all schools, compared with adjacent Highland’s 44.7 percent and Edwardsville’s 53.3 percent.

“Triad has a strong curriculum, and we have excellent teachers,” Lewis said. “It’s just getting acclimated to the new standards and the rigor. It takes time to adjust to something new and different when you’re used to something else…. We’ve been doing multiple-choice paper-and-pencil tests for a very long time.”

There’s not going to be any escape from testing and reporting scores, Greenwald said. “We’re evaluated on data and scores. We’re not going to be able to get away from the changing aspect of test scores,” Greenwald said. “The standards are always going to be high. But in this day and age, the students of the 2000s are very technologically adept.”

When Greenwald watched last year’s testing with third- and fourth-graders, it made an impression. “The effort and enthusiasm those little boys and girls were putting forth was magnificent,” Greenwald said. “I love the challenge.”

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 9:50 AM with the headline "PARCC scores are in: How did metro-east schools fare?."