THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606140230
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 89 lines
MANY OF PORTSMOUTH'S 1996 high school graduates will head to college this fall well-prepared for the academic challenges awaiting them.
The school district can take much of the credit.
While the district still is plagued by low attendance rates at middle and high schools as well as large numbers of students lacking basic skills, it is doing a better job of preparing more students for college, the latest state report card showed.
Last school year, 35 percent of Portsmouth's high school graduates earned an advanced-studies diploma - up 4 percentage points from 1993-94.
At the middle school level, more eighth-graders are taking algebra and foreign language classes - both of which prepare students for college and are considered important to building critical-thinking skills for all students.
From 1993-94 to 1994-95, the percentage of city eighth-graders who studied a foreign language before high school jumped 8 percentage points - to 33 percent.
The percentage of eighth-graders who had taken an algebra I class before high school was up 12 percentage points - to 29 percent, the state report card showed.
The report card, released annually, highlights strengths and weaknesses in public schools.
Educators and parents use the information to improve instruction and craft school-improvement plans.
District's report card mixed:
Many of the city's 1994-95 results are heartening, administrators said.
The results aren't all positive, however.
The report card, which covers the 1990-91 through 1994-95 school years, pinpointed persistent problem areas - especially among middle school students.
From 1993-94 to 1994-95, for instance, districtwide attendance rates at middle and high schools dropped.
The drop was sharpest at the middle school level, where 46 percent of students were absent from school for more than two weeks in 1994-95.
Forty-eight percent of high school students were absent from school for more than two weeks that year, up from 46 percent in 1993-94.
In another area, the administration noted last year's districtwide gains in the percentage of elementary, middle and high school students who scored above the national median on standardized tests.
The state's review of test scores does not take student-poverty rates into account, a factor that affects classroom performance.
But it does gauge how well city students perform on those tests in comparison with everyone else.
The median also is known as the national ``50th percentile.''
A student who performed in the 50th percentile on a standardized test did better than half of the original students taking the test and worse than the other half.
Portsmouth's 11th-graders saw the most improvement in that area last school year. Half of them scored above the 50th percentile.
That was up from only 41 percent of high school juniors who did so in 1993-94.
Elementary students continue to lead the district.
Sixty-four percent of fourth-graders scored above the median in 1994-95, the report card showed.
Districtwide achievement rates typically begin to plummet in middle school.
Last year, for example, 58 percent of eighth-graders performed below the national median on standardized tests, which generally measure basic, low-level skills.
On the tougher Literacy Passport Test, first given to students in the sixth grade, only half of Portsmouth sixth-graders passed all three parts on the first try last year.
That was down from 57 percent in 1993-94.
Both the administration and the School Board hope a new program will help reverse middle school trends.
The six-year-old Equity 2000 program, sponsored by the College Board, will be launched in all four middle schools this fall.
The district earmarked about $73,000 for the program, designed to better prepare students for success in the workplace or higher education.
A key aim is to expose more children - especially disadvantaged kids - to a rigorous, academic education.
In the six ``national demonstration sites'' that have adopted the program, students are expected to complete algebra by the ninth grade and geometry by the 10th grade.
Teachers, counselors and principals also get intensive training in topics ranging from raising students' expectations to hands-on learning. MEMO: For more information about Portsmouth's annual state report card,
call the central administration at 393-8743.
LIST OF GRADS/ Page 14
KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZED TESTS STATE REPORT CARD EDUCATION
PORTSMOUTH SCHOOLS by CNB