Nebo School District officials say they're not surprised that this year's districtwide results from national standardized testing look much like last year's, but add that language arts continue to be a concern.
The district released its Stanford Achievement Test scores this week, coinciding with the release of statewide scores. Sterling Swenson, district pupil services director, said the overall test scores have dropped only slightly at both the fifth- and eighth-grade levels, while 11th-graders have actually improved somewhat.Consequently, "the district is pleased with the performance of its students this year," Swenson said, adding that he and other district leaders consider a testing program to be "an important part of every school's curriculum program."
"(Testing) gives the school staff a standard for measuring curriculum programs and monitoring the progression of students throughout their educational experience," he said. "It is a valuable tool for teachers and can be used to observe and adjust various curriculum approaches."
All Utah school districts administer the SAT to elementary, junior high and high school students as part of a legislative-mandated program of accountability in education. The district tested 1,294 fifth-graders, 1,359 eighth-graders and 1,100 11th-graders in October.
On the SAT, Nebo's 17 elementary schools managed to outperform their national and statewide counterparts in all areas of the test. The fifth- and 11th-graders performed particularly well in mathematics, where they scored well above the national norm of 50. Norms are created by the test company, which tests large numbers of children to establish a range from one to 100.
Nebo officials still say they're concerned about continuing mediocre scores in the language arts test on the eighth- and 11th-grade levels, both of which are still below the national norm. On the high school level, though, students did manage to raise their language score by six points.
Swenson noted that the language arts testing area has been a sore spot for the state, especially on the junior high level, and some language arts instructors say the lower scores are a result of a writing emphasis that does not relate to the Stanford test.
The district has attempted to address the problem with its writing assessment program, but officials say that the program will take a few years to yield true results.
District leaders can use the test results as a measuring stick for students who take it at different grade levels. For instance, junior high school principals can compare their eighth-graders' results with 1990 scores of the same students in fifth grade - and high school administrators can see how their 11th-graders tested as eighth-graders in 1990.
In addition to the SAT results, the district also released the results of the American College Test. This year, the Nebo students tested received a composite score of 21.2, up 0.6 from last year and above state and national composites this year (21.1 and 20.7, respectively). Colleges and universities use individual ACT scores, as well as grade point averages, when they receive applications for admission.
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(Chart)
3-year comparison of Nebo students' scores
Grade 5 Grade 8 Grade 11
1991 '92 '93 1991 '92 '93 1991 '92 '93
Reading 61 55 55 53 55 53 61 54 58
Math 73 68 65 53 53 51 59 54 59
Language 55 52 52 39 41 41 51 39 45
Total 63 60 58 47 49 48 56 51 52
Science 60 56 56 49 53 53 60 60 60
Social
Science 61 55 51 50 50 50 62 56 56
Note: Science and social science subtests are not figured into composite scores