By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ROBBINSVILLE The results of the most recent round of state standardized tests at Robbinsville High School gave district officials reason to crow, but some middle and elementary school scores leave room for improvement.
Assistant Superintendent Kathleen Foster told the school board the district has a threefold purpose when it delves into the 2012 testing data from the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) taken by 11th graders, and the 2012 New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) taken by grades three through eight.
”We’re looking to see how our curriculum aligns with the state assessments, we’re looking to celebrate areas of strength … but probably the most important piece is that (the data) helps us target areas for growth,” Dr. Foster said.
The presentation at the Jan. 22 Board of Education focused on the results for one grade at each of the district’s schools: Grade 11 at Robbinsville High School, Grade 8 at Pond Road Middle School and Grade 3 at Sharon Elementary School.
Grade 11 HSPA
District officials said they were pleased its high school juniors had higher overall proficiency rates on both sections of the 2012 HSPA than peers in districts of similar socio-economic status, what the state calls District Factor Group I.
For comparison, the state ranks districts alphabetically from A to J with J being the wealthiest. Other I districts in the same category as Robbinsville include Princeton Regional, Hopewell Valley Regional, Millstone and South Brunswick.
Dr. Foster said 94.4 percent of the 215 RHS high school juniors who took the math section of the 2012 HSPA passed the test. Of that total, 59.5 percent scored proficient and 34.9 percent scored advanced proficient.
The passing rate for District I Factor Group schools on the 2012 HSPA math section was lower, 91.1 percent. Of that total, 44.4 percent scored proficient and 46.7 percent scored advanced proficient. The statewide passing rate was even lower, 79.3 percent, with 51.8 percent proficient and 27.5 scoring advanced proficient.
On the language arts section of the 2012 HSPA, 98.1 percent of the RHS high school juniors who took the test passed, Dr. Foster said. Of that total, 69.3 percent scored in the proficient range and 28.8 percent scored advanced proficient.
The passing rate for District I Factor Group schools on the language arts section of the HSPA was slightly lower, 97.4 percent, with 59.4 percent scoring proficient and 38 percent scoring advanced proficient. The statewide passing rate was 91.5 percent, with 69.7 percent proficient and 21.8 percent advanced proficient.
”We’re very happy that we have so many proficient students in our community but the question is how do we get more students into the advanced proficient, that’s been our push,” Dr. Foster said.
Dr. Foster noted that the state is planning on phasing out the 11th grade HSPA test, which is currently a graduation requirement, and replacing it in 2014-2015 with a new standardized test called PARCC, which stands for Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers. New Jersey will also require end-of-year course assessments for high school graduation.
Grade 8 NJASK
The results for the NJASK test, administered to all schoolchildren in grades 3 through 8 last spring, showed Pond Road Middle School Grade 8 scores were slightly below similar school districts in the District I Factor Group.
At Pond Road Middle School, 17.3 percent of eighth-graders did not pass the math section of NJASK. Of the 82.6 percent who passed, 47 percent were proficient and 35.6 percent were advanced proficient.
In comparison, the passing rate for the Grade 8 NJASK math in the District I Factor Group was higher at 87.1 percent, with 40.2 percent scoring proficient and 46.9 percent scoring advanced proficient. The statewide passing rate was 71.7 percent, with 41.5 percent proficient and 30.1 percent advanced proficient.
On the language arts section of the Grade 8 NJASK, 93.1 percent of Robbinsville students passed, including 68.8 percent who scored proficient and 24.3 percent who scored advanced proficient.
In comparison, 94 percent of students in the District Factor Group I passed the language arts section, with 67.7 percent scoring proficient and 26.3 percent scoring advanced proficient. Statewide, 82.2 percent passed, with 67.7 percent scoring proficient and 14.5 percent scoring advance proficient.
Grade 3 NJASK
The news was better at Sharon School, where 92.7 percent of Robbinsville third-graders that took the NJASK passed the math section, with 50.6 percent scoring proficient and 42.1 percent scoring advanced proficient.
The number of proficient math students in the District I Factor Group was slightly lower at 91.1 percent, with 37.3 percent scoring proficient and 53.8 percent scoring advanced proficient. Statewide, the passing rate was 78.4 percent with 41.3 percent scoring proficient and 37.1 percent scoring advanced proficient.
In the language arts section of the Grade 3 NJASK, 85.5 percent of Robbinsville students passed the test. A total 78.8 percent scored proficient and 6.7 percent scored advanced proficient.
The Robbinsville language scores exceeded the District I Factor Group, where 82.2 percent passed, with 75 percent scoring proficient and 7.2 percent scoring advanced proficient. Statewide, 66.7 percent passed the Grade 3 NJASK, with 63.1 percent scoring proficient and 3.6 percent scoring advanced proficient.
”We have put a lot of emphasis in focused literacy instruction,” Dr. Foster pointed out. The district intends to “continue to invest in literacy and math coaches in K-8 who work with our teachers are able to model and co-teach and support their colleagues.”
Testing changes
There are changes coming in state standardized testing, Dr. Foster told the school board.
The 2001 federal No Child Left Behind Act, which established targets requiring 100 percent of students to be proficient in math and language arts by 2014, set a “loft goal that probably wasn’t very realistic,” Dr. Foster said. New Jersey and nine other states received federal waivers from No Child Left Behind last year.
New Jersey has instead put in place a new accountability standard that replaces the old NCLB performance targets and sets school-wide benchmark targets of 90 percent by 2016-2017, Dr. Foster said.
The state has sent districts “baseline data” based on the collective 2011 standardized testing results of each of its schools. The high school is already rated proficient because more than 90 percent of the students who took the HSPA in 11th grade received proficient or advanced proficient scores.
The collective math and language arts NJASK scores for grades 4 through 8 at Pond Road Middle School are “targeting toward” the 90 percent benchmark, but still fall short, she said. The 2011 baseline data puts the language arts scores for the entire middle school at 87.4 percent and math scores at 81.2 percent.
At Sharon School, a K-3 school where only the third-graders take the NJASK, the school meets the benchmark for language arts (92.4 percent) based on the 2011 data, but its math scores (85.5 percent) need improvement to reach the 90 percent benchmark.
The new state-required PARCC tests that will be given to grades 3, 4, 5,6,7, 8 and 11 in the 2014-2015 school year will be online tests, probably administered twice a year, instead of the traditional annual paper standardized tests, Dr. Foster said.
A total of 25 million students in 22 states will be taking the PARCC when it is fully operational in 2014-2015.

