preliminary EOG results for OCS (math)

Sorry I didn't get this up yesterday, but Josh and I were producing the Woodcroft Gazette.

So, here's a bit more detailed analysis of the preliminary End of Grade (EOG) exams in math by school. Reading and science will follow, as this is a lot of math to do in one sitting (for me, anyway).

Dr. Mary Calhoun, district director of accountability, was kind enough to give me numbers from each school by grade all the way back until 2006.

Elementary Schools
(Again, here I'm using 2009 retest number versus 2008 numbers).

Out of the elementary schools, Efland Cheeks saw the biggest improvement from last year to this year, with a 16.6 percent increase in scores. Hillsborough's scores were the highest, with 90.2 percent of students proficient in math. Close behind were Cameron Park (87.9 percent), Pathways (85.9 percent), New Hope (85.7 percent) and Grady Brown (85 percent). The district saw an 85 percent proficiency rate this year.

Still, as Dr. Calhoun said, comparing last year's fourth-graders, for example, with this year's fourth-graders is like comparing apples to oranges. She suggested comparing last year's third-graders to this year's fourth-graders to follow what is likely mostly the same students.

(This is where the math part came in. Hopefully, my numbers are right!)

More of this year's fifth-graders at Grady Brown increased their proficiency in math over when they were in fourth grade, by about 23 percent. Close behind them with a nearly 22 percent increase in proficiency were New Hope fifth graders. Cameron Park fourth-graders in 2009 increased proficiency in math over their third-grade selves by 14.1 percent.

Still, some students lost proficiency in math. More than 11 percent (11.4) of Central fifth-graders lost proficiency in math when compared with third-grade scores of 2008, as did Pathways 3.7 percent of Pathways fifth-graders and 2.5 percent of Cameron Park fifth-graders.

Overall, however, the trend is positive. Most elementary schools saw improvement in math, and grades three through eight as a whole saw improvement after the retest over last year's scores. State scores are not yet out for the 2009 school year.

Middle Schools

Onto the middle schools now.

Gravelly Hill had the most dramatic increases across the board in straight grade-to-grade (i.e. sixth-graders from '08 to six-graders from '09) comparison. As a school, they achieved a 25.5 percent increase over last year's EOG result.

Still, none of the schools saw dips in proficiency, which is really great news.

In the apples to apples comparison, Gravelly Hill again saw great gains: 35.7 percent of this year's seventh-graders (again, last year's sixth-graders) achieved at least a Level III (which indicates proficiency) on their EOGs. Nearly 22 percent of '09 eighth-graders at the school did the same, followed by 14.4 percent of C.W. Stanford seventh-graders and 14.2 percent of A.L. Stanback seventh-graders.

This is really great news for the district. To paraphrase something Bruce Middleton, coordinator for K-12 math and science in the district, said at a parent meeting, We wouldn't allow illiteracy in reading, so why do we allow it in math? Hopefully, these scores show that students in Orange County Schools are gaining math literacy.

More tomorrow (or maybe later today) on science and reading.