The Evesham Township School District Board of Education recently reviewed last year’s scores at its most recent meeting.
On average, students in the Evesham Township School District equaled or outperformed their peers across the state when it came to meeting or exceeding expectations on last year’s Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers state exam.
At its most recent meeting, the ETSD Board of Education reviewed how students performed on the 2015–2016 school year PARCC test that all students in grades three through eight took for the second time.
PARCC, an entirely computer-based test, replaced the state’s formerly administered New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge test for the 2014–2015 school year.
As with NJASK, the PARCC exam tests students in English language arts and mathematics.
With PARCC, students’ scores are measured with a scale of scoring levels from one to five. A score of one means students did not yet meet expectations, a score of two means students partially met expectations, a score of three means students approached expectations, a score of four means students met expectations and a score of five means students exceeded expectations.
Scores of four or five are equivalent to what was formerly ranked as “proficient” on the NJASK.
“In each of those levels, they’re really just indicating what typical students should be able to demonstrate based on the grade level standards,” said district testing coordinator Robin Collins.
For the percentage of students who scored a four or five in English, Evesham students topped the state in the following: grade three with 51 percent compared to the state’s 47 percent, grade four with 61 percent to the state’s 54 percent, grade five with 59 percent to the state’s 53 percent, grade seven with 70 percent to the state’s 57 percent and grade eight with 61 percent to the state’s 56 percent.
Evesham students in grade six were the only group not to score higher than the state, as Evesham students tied the state average with 52 percent of students scoring a four or five.
For the percentage of students who scored a four or five in math, Evesham students topped the state in the following: grade three with 59 percent to the state’s 52 percent, grade four with 47 percent to the state’s 46 percent, grade five with 53 percent to the state’s 47 percent, grade seven with 57 percent to the state’s 38 percent and grade eight with 33 percent to the state’s 26 percent.
The only area where the percentage of Evesham students who scored fours or fives in math was lower than the state average was sixth grade, where Evesham had 42 percent of students score a four or five compared to the state’s 43 percent.
District director of curriculum and instruction Danielle Magulick also pointed out that scores for eighth-grade math were lower in Evesham and across the state when compared to other grades because many high achieving students in eighth grade will be placed in Algebra I, which with PARCC they take the high school level Algebra I test.
“When you’re looking at that number, that does seem very low, but that’s because those high achieving students are taken out of the equation,” Magulick said.
For the Evesham students who took the Algebra I test, 96 percent of students scored a four or five, compared to the state average of 41 percent.
“Basically, you want to see your level ones, your level twos and your level threes start to go down over time, and your fours and fives going up over time,” Magulick said. “As a general trend, we saw that across the state and we saw that here in our district as well.”
