Math results presented to the Board of Ed.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has been working to help students advance more than a year in math and reading in a year’s time, as newly released numbers show how far some have fallen behind both socially and academically due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The number of math students learning at the grade level fell as far as 10 or even 1 percent in some categories. The results also showed some glimmers of hope for how to begin reversing the slide.
Similar to other school districts throughout the country, NHPS has focused an influx of resources for the past two years towards helping students navigate the social and emotional impacts of the pandemic. (Click here for more about the national school crisis impact.)
Last Friday the district conducted its second annual Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Day to encourage students, staff, and families to prioritize health, wellness, and emotional learning.
In addition to social healing the district is working this year to help students “heal” academically, especially in math and literacy.
Two local math and literacy reports for NHPS were presented in recent weeks to the Board of Education. The reports by School’s Math Supervisor Ken Mathews and Supervisor of Literacy Lynn Brantley showed what levels students are currently working at in math and literacy, improvements made since the start of the year, and their progress with pushing kids to learn “more than one year in one year.”
Math: iReady and IXL Updates
Mathews gave the board a math report on the newly implemented “iReady” curriculum for kindergarteners through fifth graders. The overall read of the data is that more than half of students in K‑5 are behind by one or two grade levels. (Click here for the presentation pdf.)
The upside, according to Mathews, is that many students are gradually catching up by learning more than a year’s worth of math in one school year.
Matthews’ data was based on the half-year progress of 7,766 students, from fall to winter.
“What we learned is that we were normally accustomed to seeing about two thirds of our students working below grade level in the beginning of the school year,” Mathews said.
In the fall, 61 percent of K‑5 students were at least two grade levels behind in a math proficiency assessment Thirty five percent were one grade level behind. Only 4 percent were working on or above their grade levels.
This winter the students’s results have improved, with 45 percent, or 3,495 students, placing two grade levels behind, and 44 percent (3,417 students) placing one grade level behind. And 11 percent placed on or above their grade level.
The full math presentation begins in the above video at 52 minutes in.
“Our mantra this year is that in order to make up for the lost learning due to Covid, our students need to progress more than one year in one year,” Mathews said.
By the end of the year, Mathews said, the district expects over 20 percent of students to reach their grade level placement for math.
Mathews also reported on the number of students who have achieved one year’s worth of growth so far, based on individualized student learning plans.
Halfway into the school year, the majority of K‑5 students have reached a half year’s worth of growth, Mathews reported. The majority of fourth graders have reached 61 percent of typical annual growth.
The majority of students in grade 2 had a progression rate of 44 percent, meaning those students have not yet reached a half year of growth.
Many of the district’s second graders entered this year reading at kindergarten levels due to the lack of in-class instruction in the previous year.
Some K‑5 students have already met one year’s worth of growth and progress, Mathews reports those students in the column labeled “% Met.”
For fifth grade, 28 percent of students have already achieved a year’s worth of growth.
In the “annual stretch” growth column, Mathews shows the growing number of students who have reached more than one year’s worth of progress.
Kindergarten growth from fall to winter brought the number of students working at grade level from 6 percent to 24 percent.
First-grade growth shows 4 percent of students working at grade level in the fall and an increase to 10 percent in the winter.
The number of second and third-grade students working at grade level increased to 7 percent.
And grade four and five doubled the number of students working at grade level to a total of 1- percent so far.
Mathews also reported that more than half of students with disabilities have reached 39 percent of growth so far this year. Additionally 23 percent of students with disabilities have already reached a full year of growth; 5 percent have achieved more than a year worth of growth.
Mathews correlated students’ progress with their time spent on individualized instruction. Of all K‑5 students, 32 percent have spent at least 40 minutes on iReady’s individualized instruction component, My Path. Of that group of students, 96 percent showed greater than 50 percent of one year’s growth, and 54 percent showed at least one year of growth already.
“Yes, the data is not good when we look at how many students are two years or more below grade level,” Mathews said. “But we seem to have a silver bullet here. When we can get students on My Path for more than 40 minutes per week, they progress.”
This year the education program IXL was adopted by the district for grades 6 – 12. The program features individualized instruction similar to iReady’s.
In the fall, less than 1 percent of high school students worked at grade level. There has been a slight increase mid-year, though grades 11 and 12 still have less than 1 percent of students at grade level so far.
By the end of the year, Mathews said, the district expects to see at least 10 percent of students in grades 6 – 12 working at their grade level.
Mathews reported of 24 percent of students who spent at least 40 minutes per week on individualized instruction, 92 percent showed greater than 50 percent of one year’s growth, and 47 percent showed more than one year of growth already.
Superintendent Iline Tracey reminded the school community that the data presented during meetings are just individual data points used to capture student growth.
“The only way to go for New Haven is up,” Tracey said. “Everyone knows that when you’re implementing a program it takes a while for us to get the threshold we’re trying to get at.”
Board president Yesenia Rivera asked that some pre-pandemic data also be presented in the future to compare to this year.
Literacy Update
Brantley presented a literacy update to the board last month during the Feb. 28 Board meeting. (Click here for presentation pdf.)
During the presentation, Brantley reviewed the mid-year results of formative and summative winter assessments, which measured students’ difficulty areas and comprehension after completing instructional units.
Brantley’s preliminary data combined three formative benchmark assessment system (BAS) assessments for K‑3 students.
Less than half of those evaluated K‑3 students are reading at their grade level. Brantley reported that 43 percent of kindergartners, 32 percent of first graders, 38 percent of second graders, and 37 percent of third graders are reading at grade level.
For oral reading fluency, summative winter assessment data shows that 19 percent of kindergarteners, 30 percent of first graders, 30 percent of second graders and 28 percent of third graders are reading at their grade level.
For the first year of the grades 9 and 10 reading and writing common assessments, 14 percent of students scored at “goal,” 22.7 percent scored “proficient,” and 63.3 percent scored “basic results.” For the 11 – 12 grade common assessment, 20.6 percent of students score goal, 30.2 percent scored proficient, and 49.2 percent scored basic.
“We have many many, many, many years proving that we can move the numbers up as you stay with us, as we move through a rich curriculum,” Brantley said.
Watch the full presentation below starting at one hour and 14 minutes in.
During the March 14 Board of Ed meeting, Mathews also congratulated several math department staffers who received national recognization
For the Noyes Math Teacher Leader Program, Davis St. School’s Justin Wentworth, Conte’s Sara Cole, and ESUMS;s William McKinney were recognized.
Hillhouse’s Audra Forstrum was awarded the Cambium Essential Educator Award.
ESUMS’s Alissa Levy received the Khan Academy Classroom Achievement Award.
Additionally, six educators were highlighted as current students or graduates of a NHPS and Albertus Magnus College partnership that created a Master of Science in STEM Education Degree available to local educators.
The recent graduates include Courtney Sutherland of King Robinson School, Lead Library Media Specialist Kim Rogers, Julia Clow of Dr. Mayo School, Zania Collier of King Robinson, Tyler Mitchell of Conte School, and Samantha Jennings of Dr. Mayo School.