THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, March 31, 1995                 TAG: 9503290220
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER       PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   39 lines

REPORT CARD ON SCHOOLS PRESENT

The performance of Chesapeake schools in this year's Outcome Accountability Project, the state Education Department's annual measure of educational quality, was mixed.

There were modest gains in test scores across the board, and the percentage of students earning advanced diplomas continued to rise, though slowly.

On the down side, Chesapeake's sixth-graders still score below the state average on the Literacy Passport Test, which measures mastery of reading, writing and math - the basic skills we expect every child to acquire.

There are things in the OAP report to justify pride in the local school system, but obviously our schools are not all we want them to be. Not yet.

One item in the published OAP results was especially encouraging. Chesapeake schools led the entire region in one category: attendance.

The top nine elementary schools, four of the top five middle schools and three of the top four high schools in attendance rates are Chesapeake schools.

From this, we extrapolate:

That parents and educators are getting the message across to our students that school is important;

That our schools are interesting and challenging enough to maintain the interest of most students.

That our students are savvy enough to know that time spent in class will pay off better than time spent almost anywhere else.

These things being true, better scores in other areas measured by the OAP are achievable. by CNB