State of the School Report
November 20, 2007
The Nebraska Department of Education releases the State of the School report annually by posting important information on their web-site at www.nde.state.ne.us. (Report Card) . Every school district in the state has basically the same information available for public access. The district profile compares local demographic statistics to state demographic statistics; poverty percentage, the percentage of students on free and or reduced lunches, English language learners, special education, mobility, graduation rate, attendance, enrollment and percent of endorsed teachers. A more complete definition is also available. Information regarding the assessment program used to measure performance on reading and math standards, as well as the level of performance of students is also available. Since each district developed their individual assessment plan to measure progress on standards, this is not the most reliable comparison of student performance between districts. Student performance is broken down by sub groups of students to ensure that there is not a significant gap between different sub groups. Each district is required to administer a standardize test which is also reported. Not all of the districts in the state utilize the same standardized assessment. Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP for federal accountability reporting for reading and math) is reported by building as “Met” or “Not Met”. Much of this information is not available for many districts as they must have at least 30 students in a group to report. Many districts do not have sub populations of 30 and in many cases they have less than 30 students in the entire class.
The state-wide writing assessment, the same in all school districts, is also reported. It is also good to see the trend over the last five years showing continued improvement as to the number of students meeting standards. Our improved writing performance is due to the importance placed by our staff throughout the district. There is also a trend on both the standardize assessment results for reading and math and the ACT information. Five-year trend data is also available on much of the profile information.
The trend information is very positive. Gering has experienced some of the greatest gains in student achievement in the area of reading with regards to standard proficiency data for the previous five years in 4th, 8th and 11th grades. Examples of the reading achievement improvements include a 42% increase for 4th grade, a 47% increase for 8th grade and a 26% increase for 11th grade. Five years ago Gering was performing well below the state average in reading at all three grade levels; we are now performing at or above the state average in all three grade levels with regards to student proficiency on Nebraska’s State Standards for Reading.
Gering has experienced impressive achievement gains in math as well in 4th, 8th and 11th grades with regards to proficiency data for the previous five years. Examples of the math achievement improvements include a 35% increase for 4th grade, a 28% improvement for 8th grade and an 8%
improvement for 11th grade. As mentioned earlier, Gering students have made continue to improve on their state-wide writing assessment scores and these improvements compared to five years ago are: a 25% increase for 4th grade, a 18% improvement for 8th grade and a 2% improvement for 11th grade.
The report card provides three year data for standardized test information for reading and math. Gering has demonstrated positive gains for 4th, 8th and 11th grades in both reading and math. These positive gains are as follows: 4th grade a 22% increase for reading and a 12 % increase for math; 8th grade a 17% increase in reading and a 16% increase in math and 11th grade an 8% increase in reading and a 9% increase in math. Gering’s student achievement continues to improve and we will continue to stay focused on providing excellent opportunities for our students.
