MCAS results show overall improvement
By Kate Daly Assistant Editor

Westborough - With one exception, Westborough schools exceeded expectations on MCAS results again, Assistant Superintendent Marianne O'Connor reported to the School Committee Sept. 5.

"Once again, we did really very, very well," she said.

In reporting the adequate yearly progress (AYP), O'Connor explained that the district has ranges of grades three to five, six to eight and nine to 12 in English language arts and in math.

"We have to make adequate progress not only in the aggregate for the entire district in the ranges … in both subject areas," she said, "we have to make it in each little subgroup, and you have to have at least 40 students to be classified as a subgroup."

Subgroups include English language learners, Special Education, race and ethnicity.

In the 2007 MCAS, the grades tested not only made AYP but also exceeded it as a whole and in all but one subgroup, O'Connor said.

"The only subgroup that did not make [AYP] this year, and again, it is a very small group, is Special Education students in a range of grades six to eight," she said.

She and administrators and teachers at the school level are looking at the scores and the members of the group to see why they did not make AYP, she said.

Superintendent Anne Towle pointed out that the group's scores did go up.

"This is the first time we've had one group not meet AYP," she said. "This doesn't mean we didn't improve. What it meant [is] we didn't meet the target of expected improvement, which was three points for our district. We did improve … but not at the targeted level."

O'Connor also praised the work elementary school teachers have been doing with English language learners, whose scores went up 6.1 points.

"It's huge. It goes back to classroom teachers," she said. "The elementary teachers have been phenomenal."

Science scores

exceptional

Scores in science in fifthand eighth-grade science have been so impressive, O'Connor said, that other schools are looking to Westborough for its teaching methods.

"We're being touted as a vanguard district for science because our science scores in grades five and eight are fantastic," she said. "Districts want to look at us and know what have you been doing to get your science scores up there, and we've been doing a variety of things."

The district has been asked to present at the upcoming STEM IV Planning Conference in Sturbridge. STEM is a statewide initiative to "prepare Massachusetts students for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," according to the STEM Web site, www. massachusetts.edu/stem. Districts presenting there will share the practices that they have found effective, O'Connor said.

"We are focusing on what we are doing K through eight that result in best practices that sustain eff ective instruction," she said after the meeting. "Our scores are consistently strong in [grades] five and eight."

One of Westborough's strengths comes from making the most of its own resources, O'Connor said. In addition to using outside consultants for teacher development, the district's own faculty lead their colleagues in professional development.

"We really focus on using exemplary teachers that we [have] here in Westborough," she said.

The Gibbons Middle School schedule has been restructured to include an elective period, O'Connor said, so that students can choose from electives including scientific inquiry and exposition, advanced robotics, topics in science, interactive meteorology and even one called Young Einstein, interdisciplinary science and math challenges.

Westborough

and MCAS

District and building administrators are still analyzing MCAS results, O'Connor said a week after the School Committee meeting, and individual students' results hadn't been released to parents at that time. Parents will receive a report of their child's test results, but right now the district is analyzing district-wide, or aggregate, and sub-group results.

For those students who do not make AYP, she said, the district will devise a required remediation plan.

The problem for Westborough, though, is based on its already rich educational environment, O'Connor explained; it's easier for a school that needs to start from the bottom to make improvements and meet AYP.

"We started out so high, it's hard to move six or seven points," O'Connor said. "It's a very small number of students that are not making AYP."

The district has not succumbed to "teaching to the test" that some schools may have, O'Connor said.

"We're just using good teaching and test taking strategies that will be helpful wherever they go, teaching them to be problem solvers, to look at a question different way," O'Connor said. "The MCAS is application and knowledge."

The key to a successful MCAS test is understanding the question and showing the work, she said. An incorrect math answer can earn points if the test taker shows logic and mathematical thinking in coming to that answer.

"We have really looked at aligning curriculum so [the students] get the knowledge they need," O'Connor said. "We're trying to get kids to be thinkers, problem solvers and be critical thinkers."