Column: H.S. Test Scores a Mixed Bag

New Jersey released school test scores last week.

It’s an annual ritual that is both highly anticipated and loathed by many.

No matter how much people complain about the over-testing of students, about the state placing too much emphasis on the tests, about schools teaching to the test and of tests being used to judge schools, everyone combs the test scores to see how students and schools are doing.

Judging by the statewide averages on the language arts and math sections of the High School Proficiency Assessment—passing this test is a graduation requirement for most high schoolers—students and schools are doing fairly well, or at least improving.

Almost 90 percent of high school juniors, the current Class of 2012, who took the test for the first time last spring passed the reading and writing section of the test. Three-quarters passed math. Those represent increases of 2.5 percentage points in language arts and 1.1 percentage points in math over the 2010 test administration.

Looking at Morris County schools, the results are mixed. About half the schools improved their average percent “passing” rates—those scoring proficient or advanced proficient—in math. A little more than half improved their language arts passing rates. But that means the others had lower passing rates.

Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean the quality of these schools has dropped.

Many Morris high schools are wealthy and naturally high-achieving, so small drops in passing rates don’t mean much. That’s especially true given that the test is measuring the performance of one class against an entirely different group of students. Ask any teacher and he or she will say that, for whatever reason, different classes of students from year to year have different personalities, different strengths and different weaknesses.

It should be up to teachers to address every student’s needs, but that’s often not possible. In an ideal world, every student would pass. As a practical matter, that’s never going to be the case.

It’s easier to improve performance when starting from a low point than to bring a 98 percent passing rate up to a 99 or perfection. And it’s hard to get every student to pass—the only Morris schools to do so last year were the two academies for high-achievers within Morris County Vocational School District, and one school (law and public safety) had only 12 students take the tests, while the other (math, science and engineering) had 22.

There are other caveats to test results. Generally, children from higher-income families do better and vice versa. The state Department of Education released other results, as well, for tests for grades 3-8 and breakdowns within each test for special education and bilingual students, sex and race, among others. These generally bore out traditional stereotypes and trends: boys did test better than girls in math, while girls did better in language arts; Asians outperformed all other racial and ethnic groups in math, and they scored as well as whites on the language arts section.

No test or group of tests should be used to grade a school, but taken with other information, including demographic and socioeconomic, they can provide fodder for parents and community members, not to mention school officials themselves, to see what a school is doing well and question whether it might be able to do some things better.

For instance, Dover, which is ranked among the poorest and lowest socioeconomic grouping in the state, posted impressive passing increases of 6.5 percent in language arts and 11.1 percent in math. It outperformed and , in Sussex, on both sections of the test, and also had a higher passing percentage in math than , , Roxbury, , and Boonton, all of which are ranked higher socioeconomically based on the state’s district factor group system.

Did Dover have an especially bright class take the test or has it implemented some changes in curriculum or teaching style, or both, that led to the increases?

It can also be useful to compare schools’ scores against the district factor group averages, which give an idea of how schools are doing compared to similar schools.

In the GH group, which is roughly upper middle class, a little more than half of Morris districts fared better than the average in each of the tests. Jefferson, Morristown and both Parsippany high schools had a smaller percentage of students passing. Could these schools do something differently to help more students pass?

There is one especially troubling statewide result that all districts should consider: Blacks had the lowest passing rates on the HSPA of any other major racial or ethnic group. Even though English is not the first language for some Hispanic students, they did better than blacks on the reading and writing section of the test, as well as on math. This pattern carries through in those Morris districts for which brakedowns were available, particularly regarding the math results.

That kind of information is what school officials and community members should take away from the test results and use as a basis for making changes to help more students pass. Because regardless of anyone’s feelings about the test, students do have to pass it in order to get a diploma.

HIGH SCHOOL PASSING RATES IN 2011

The number of high school juniors taking the HSPA in spring 2011; the percent "passing," meaning they scored proficient or advanced proficient; the change in the passing rate from the prior yearl and the percent scoring advanced proficient last year.

Source: Patch anaylsis of NJ Department of Education data