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August 1, 2011

JISD beats average in 159 areas

Karla Clark Jacksonville Daily Progress

JACKSONVILLE — Jacksonville students’ Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills scores may have improved in many areas since the 2009-2010 school year, but four schools lost ground in this year’s accountability rankings.

Jacksonville Middle School and East Side Elementary dropped from recognized schools to acceptable, while Joe Wright Elementary and Nichols Intermediate fell from exemplary to recognized campuses, according to the newly released accountability ratings.

The demotion of the four schools stems from alterations in how the state measures the rankings, tougher tests and the inclusion of special education students in the total percentages, JISD Assistant Superintendent of Instruction and Curriculum Judy Terry said.

According to the Texas Education Agency website, the standards for academically acceptable campuses increased from 55 to 60 percent for science scores, and from 60 to 65 percent for mathematics scores.  

Although the four schools lost ranking, JISD outperformed state averages in 159 areas.  

“We’re pleased with the results. Our campuses worked hard and our teachers worked hard,” Terry said. “We’re right on line and excited about another year.”

The state assigns schools to one of four categories: exemplary, recognized, academically acceptable and unacceptable.  The state determines its classification of campuses based on students’ TAKS scores, school dropout rates and student completion rates.

JISD Public Relations Coordinator Marc McCloud said the Texas Education Agency also eliminated the controversial Texas Projection Measure this year.  The removal of the TPM resulted in many school districts losing their rankings but did not greatly affect JISD campuses, Terry said.

The projection measure relied on a formula to determine the likelihood of a students’ passing the TAKS in the next year, even if they failed it in the current year.  The measure allowed school districts to count as passing students who failed the TAKS, but were expected to pass in the next year.

“The way we taught, the TPM just did not have any impact on us.  We never mentioned it to our teachers.  If it helped us it helped us, but it did not come in to play.  We never counted on it, anyway,” Terry said.

JISD has maintained average scores of 86 percent in math, 82 percent in science, and 94 percent in social studies over the last two years.  Across the seven campuses, reading and language arts scores decreased to 90 percent, down two percent from last school year.  Writing scores decreased to 97 percent, down one percent since last year.

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