THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 6, 1996 TAG: 9607060338
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 106 lines
After a year of hand-wringing over a drop in scores, local educators are toasting the latest results of the state-mandated Literacy Passport Test: The percentage of students passing it this year improved in every South Hampton Roads school district.
The test is a gatekeeper of sorts, meant to ensure that sixth-graders have mastered the basics in reading, writing and math. Students across Virginia took the test this past spring.
In Virginia Beach, nearly eight out of 10 sixth-graders passed all three sections of the test on the first try - 78 percent, up from 74 percent last year. The Beach's showing was the best in the region.
More Chesapeake sixth-graders passed the test this year than in any of the past five years: 69 percent passed, compared to 62 percent last year.
In Norfolk, the percentage of sixth-graders passing the reading section rose for the first time after five years of decline. The city's overall passing rate - 53 percent - jumped by almost 10 percentage points over last year, the greatest gain by a South Hampton Roads district.
The overall pass rate rose at all eight of Norfolk's middle schools.
``We're still a long way from where I want to be, but a 10-point jump is fantastic,'' Norfolk schools Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. said. ``People make such a big deal and point fingers when test scores go down, so I want to give our staff credit - they've really worked hard.''
Local educators, stung by a drop last year in the passing rate, attributed this year's gains largely to a redoubled effort. For example, Chesapeake Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols, completing his first year in the job, attributed gains in part to ``test improvement plans'' drafted by every school in the district.
While educators were upbeat, they acknowledged that results weren't stellar.
The Beach school district, for example, is the only one of the five school systems in South Hampton Roads to surpass the statewide average passing rate in any given year since 1990-91. Several of the districts, while improving over last year, did worse than two years ago.
Also, in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk, nearly half of the sixth-graders failed to pass at least one section of the test; some find that troubling because the test measures skills students should have learned in elementary school.
Overall, 53 percent of Norfolk sixth-graders passed all three parts of the test, compared with 44 percent last year; in Portsmouth, 53 percent passed, up from 50 percent; and in Suffolk, 52 percent passed, up from 49 percent.
Statewide results will not be released until later this month, said Virginia Department of Education officials.
State educators were guessing that the test scores would rise this year, because this was the first year for consequences: Seniors who had not passed it couldn't get a diploma.
Cam Harris, director of the state Department of Education's Office of Assessment and Reporting, said improved sixth-grade scores may be the result of a ``trickle down'' effect: It became clear to parents and students that they couldn't avoid the inevitable - the test must be passed to graduate.
``This was the year it became real for everybody,'' Harris said. ``Some people may have thought that maybe this would go away if they waited long enough, and it has not.''
Sixth-graders who failed in the spring can retake the test next year. Students who have not passed it by the time they reach high school are considered ``ungraded'' until they do pass.
Local educators called the improvements a payoff of efforts launched to raise scores since the state began giving the test in the 1989-90 school year.
``I know our administrators have put more of an emphasis on the test,'' said Brooke Schaab, a Virginia Beach assessment specialist.
At the Beach, 92 percent of the 6,050 sixth-graders taking the test passed the math section, while 88 percent passed reading and 86 percent passed writing.
``We've spent a great deal of time on the elementary level teaching them to write,'' Schaab said. ``Now kids are writing in first grade and going from there. Writing is much more a part of the curriculum.''
Clyde Colwell, reading coordinator for Norfolk schools, credited a jump in reading scores to teamwork among school staffers, teacher training and an expansion of elementary school reading programs.
Colwell cited two nationally recognized programs as particularly effective: Reading Recovery, an intensive one-on-one program to help pull up poor readers, and Foundations in Reading, a computer-based kindergarten initiative. Reading Recovery is expanding from 11 to 16 city schools in the fall, while the kindergarten program is growing from three to 12 schools, Colwell said.
In addition, Colwell said the school system has purchased more novels and other literature in an attempt to offer students a ``wide-reading'' experience.
Results show that 71 percent of the 2,479 Norfolk sixth-graders who took the passport test in the spring passed the reading section, up from 63 percent the previous year.
``I would like to look at it as proof that some of the things we've been working on are paying dividends,'' Colwell said. ``We've been working a long time to see something tangible like this.'' MEMO: Here is a look at four years of Literacy Passport Test pass
rates for sixth-graders in South Hampton Roads school districts. The
test is first given in the sixth-grade.
District 1996 1995 1994 1993
Virginia Beach 78 74 80 76
Chesapeake 69 62 68 63
Norfolk 53 44 53 52
Portsmouth 53 50 57 58
Suffolk 52 49 57 58
Source: City school districts. (Note: Passing rates are rounded to
the nearest whole number.)
KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZED TEST by CNB