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ELPS MCAS scores encouraging

Date: 10/29/2012

By Chris Maza

chrism@thereminder.com

EAST LONGMEADOW — Superintendent of Schools Gordon Smith and Valerie Annear, director of curriculum, assessment, and instruction for East Longmeadow Public Schools, recently explained the state's new data assessment program and outlined the district's progress though the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).

Annear explained to the School Committee that because of the No Child Left Behind waiver granted by the President Barack Obama's Administration, public schools in Massachusetts are no longer bound by the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards that previously required districts to attain 100 percent proficiency by 2014.

Instead, they explained, a new accountability system, called the Progress and Performance Index (PPI), would be used. Its goal, with a focus on English Language Arts (ELA), math and science scores, is to close the proficiency gaps that presently exist by half by 2017. The district's cumulative PPI, which measures progress over four years, should be a score of 75 by 2017.

"You get a cumulative PPI measure that measures progress over four years, so it's not just year-to-year, with the bulk of it being that last year," Annear said.

PPI, she said, is determined by using five MCAS indicators in elementary and middle school while two additional non-MCAS related indicators are factored into high school ratings.

In elementary and middle school, PPI is determined by calculating the progress made by the district in closing Composite Performance Index (CPI) gaps in ELA, math and science as well as the student growth percentiles (SGP).

In high school, in addition to the aforementioned criterion, graduation and drop-out rates are included in the calculations.

"Mixed into those as well would be attendance or percentage of students taking the assessments and you get additional points for increasing the number of students who score advances and decreasing the number of students who are in the warning categories," Annear said. "We were already working on those anyway, but they are giving more emphasis on that."

She added that two scores are given an aggregate score and a score for high-needs students.

"High needs is defined as out special education population, our English language learner population and our low-income population," she said. "Before you had all of these subgroups and if I happened to belong to more than one subgroup, then I was counted more than once. This is an unduplicated count of our high-needs population."

With a goal of 75 in 2017, the district appears to be in good position, according to Annear.

As a district, East Longmeadow Public Schools scored a 69 in the last assessment, putting it at an assistance level of two on a scale from one to four.

"Just to give you an idea of assistance level, in Massachusetts, if you are a level one or a level two, there is very little assistance coming from the state," he said. "When you fall into a level three category — generally that's going to be schools and districts scoring in the lowest 20 percent of the state — now you have a much more involved situation with the state coming into assist. If you move further down into level four, you're approaching the possibility of state takeover."

As a district, East Longmeadow Public Schools' CPI in ELA was 91. The district's CPI target for 2013 is 91.9 and the goal for 2017 is 95.7. In math, the district had a 2012 CPI of 83. The 2013 target for math is 84.6 with a final goal of 91.2 in 2017. With an 84.2 CPI in science in 2012, the district has a goal of 85.6 in 2013. By 2017, that number should be 91.

East Longmeadow High School's PPI score was 91, meeting or exceeding targets for all students, including those in the high-needs category, earning an assistance level of one.

Ninety-two percent of high school students scored proficient or above in ELA, while only 1 percent in the warning/failing category. Eighty-eight percent of students were proficient or better in math with 3 percent falling in the warning category, while 89 percent reached proficiency in science — a biology assessment — and 1 percent received warning/failing marks.

Birchland Park Middle School's PPI came in at 68 percent, making it a level two school, along with Mapleshade and Mountainview elementary schools, both of which had PPI scored of 72.