TerraNova test results lower than rest of district
By: Jeff Milgram
Students at the Wicoff Elementary School in Plainsboro can’t spell as well as children in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District’s other elementary schools.
And while school board President Cheryl Larrier-Jemmot wants to know why, she stopped short of asking district officials to conduct a major study of the issue.
Test scores were very much on the mind of officials at Tuesday night’s agenda meeting of the school board. In general, district officials were pleased as they spoke about the results from a battery of assessment tests.
But board members questioned results from the TerraNova test, which this year replaced the California Achievement Test as the district’s standard for reading, language arts and mathematics.
The spelling results showed that Wicoff students scored better than 76 percent of the third-grade students who took the test nationwide. But students at the other elementary schools did better.
Students at Dutch Neck School placed in the 80th percentile; Village, 84th percentile; and Maurice Hawk, 85th percentile.
Gary Reece, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said spelling test results have traditionally been lower at the Wicoff School, which houses 430 students in a building constructed in 1919.
Mr. Reece said the lower test scores may be traced to the number of students for whom English is a second language and the socioeconomic background at Wicoff, which may be different from that at other schools.
Ms. Larrier-Jemmott said the scores raise question of "equity of programs."
"I’d like to know that there will be additional resources" available at the Wicoff School, she said.
"We’re not talking about a train wreck," Mr. Reece said. "I would submit that the quality of the program is quite good."
Ms. Larrier-Jemmott backed away from calling for a full study of the racial, ethnic and socio-economic breakdown of the student population at Wicoff when the question was raised by Mr. Reece.
In general, scores in the state Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment showed that 98 percent of the middle school students were either proficient or advanced proficient in language arts literacy. In mathematics, 92 percent were proficient or advanced proficient and 98 percent were either proficient or advanced proficient in science.
The High School Proficiency Test results showed that 96 percent of high school students in the district passed the reading part of the test, 97 percent passed the math test and 97 percent passed the writing test.
West Windsor-Plainsboro students scored Scholastic Achievement Test results of 1,185 – 174 points higher than the state average of 1,011 and 166 points higher than the national average of 1,019.
According to the district report on test scores, less than 4 percent of district students who took the SAT in 1984 were Asian-Americans. That number increased to 12 percent in 1988 and went over 33 percent in 1998.
But Asian-American students scored 74 percent higher in the math part of the SAT than they did in the verbal section. Last year, the gap between math and verbal scores was 24 points for those who speak only English, 52 points for those who speak "English and other language" at home and 98 points for those who speak "other language."
District students scored higher than the national average in all 14 achievement tests, except Spanish. Ironically, the failure to meet the national average came after the district required all students to take Spanish.
Nonetheless, 94 percent of district students scored in the highest ranges in the advanced placement test for Spanish.
Mr. Reece said not all advanced placement students take the advanced placement test. He suggested the administration may ask the board to pay the $72 it costs students to take the test.
One board member disagreed.
"I’m not so sure I’d link taking the AP course with taking the AP test," said Vice President Stephen Smith.