80% of juniors pass all three sections
Lea Kahn
The initial passing rate of 11th graders at Lawrence High School who took the state-administered High School Proficiency Test (HSPT) has inched up this year.
Of the 283 juniors enrolled at Lawrence High School when the test was administered in October 1999, 80.9 percent of the Class of 2001 passed all three sections of the mandatory exam on the first try.
The results stop a recent trend of declining results at Lawrence High. The initial passing rate of 80.9 percent for the juniors in the Class of 2001 compares to the initial passing rate of 76 percent for members of the Class of 2000. The Class of 1999 had a passing rate of 79.8 percent on the first try, and the Class of 1998 had an 82.5 percent passing rate.
“We are pleased that the scores went up,” said Dr. Bruce McGraw, assistant superintendent for curriculum. “It is always better when they go up. We are not getting overly excited. We want to stay the course.”
High school students have four chances to take the state-mandated test, Dr. McGraw said. Students must pass all three sections — reading, writing and mathematics — before they can be awarded a high school diploma.
The test is given to all high school juniors in the fall, Dr. McGraw said. If they fail any portion of the test, they can take that section again in the spring. They may take it again in October of their senior year.
A senior who has not passed all three sections on the third attempt may take an alternative Student Review Assessment, he said. The student is given tutoring. When the teacher feels the student is ready, the teacher administers tasks in the area that the student failed. For example, the student may have to read six or seven pages and perform specific tasks.
Dr. McGraw said that the nearly 20 percent of students who did not pass the entire test on the first try included students who either failed one or more sections, or who were not present for one or more sections of the test. It also includes students who did not answer enough questions to be scored on one or more sections.
Although school district officials are pleased with the increasing percentage of students who passed the HSPT on the first try, no one is certain why they performed as well as they did, Dr. McGraw said.
“Was it this group of students? Was it this particular test? We don’t have enough data. We did a lot of things to get the students to focus on taking the test, but it is too soon to tell. We have to get the scores higher. I think we are on the right track,” Dr. McGraw said.
The assistant superintendent offered several possible reasons for why the students performed better on the first administration of the HSPT — starting with giving teachers more responsibility for preparing the students to pass the test.
Mathematics and English teachers have been asked to review the skills the students need to pass the test, he said. The students are being taught how to take the test — that it is better to answer all of the questions, for example.
School district officials also have created a practice HSPT which is given to high school freshmen and sophomores, Dr. McGraw said. Students who need extra help are identified early, based on their test scores, he said.
These techniques “seem to work,” he said. “They didn’t do any harm. We expect to continue to do this. The faculty felt pretty good. Let’s see if there is a pattern. We are going in the right direction.”