Programs boost fourth-grade scores
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Fifty-seven percent of fourth-graders in a magnet school program at Hammond Eastside Upper School scored at top levels in the 2008 LEAP English section, the school’s principal said.
In the math section for the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program test, 42 percent of those same magnet students scored at those higher levels, advanced or mastery.
The results compare with about 15 percent of fourth-graders in regular classes at Hammond Eastside who scored at those levels in math and English, Principal Theresa Hamilton said.
The scores indicate the magnet program is helping students improve, Hamilton said, but also that students in regular classes are benefiting from the schoolwide arts curriculum that came with the magnet school in a tax package Hammond voters approved last year.
The fourth-grade scores at Hammond Eastside are just one snapshot of Tangipahoa Parish schools’ varied results on state high stakes tests in 2008. Parish schools saw strong growth among fourth-graders districtwide but modest to mixed results for eighth-graders and high school students, school officials said.
Released Tuesday, the results come after the first year of a high-profile effort to draw attention on the tests, called “40 Days of Focus,” and while high schools are in the middle of state redesign efforts.
On the LEAP and Graduate Exit Exam tests, students can score unsatisfactory, approaching basic, basic, mastery and advanced.
The GEE is given to high school students; the LEAP to fourth- and eighth-graders.
To advance to the next grade, students taking LEAP must score at least at basic and approaching basic in math and English. To graduate from high school, students must score at least at approaching basic in English and math, and the same for either science or social studies.
Melissa Stilley, chief academic officer for the parish school system, said gains among fourth-graders had a “wow” factor that those among eighth-graders and high school students didn’t have.
For instance, the number of fourth-graders districtwide who scored at advanced or mastery in English increased by 6 percentage points combined versus 2007 while the number of fourth-graders promoted rose 5 percentage points versus last year.
