School Information System

3rd Grade Reading Scores Released

Wisconsin DPI just released statewide third grade reading test results:

• DPI Superintendant Elizabeth Burmaster's comments: (6 page pdf)
• Sarah Carr: Still, at the state level, educators need to work on closing a persistent achievement gap between students of different races and socioeconomic classes, said Joe Donovan, state Department of Public Instruction spokesman. This year, 64% of African-American and 65% of Hispanic students scored in the top two categories, compared with 90% of white students.

  Lindsey added that too many MPS schools - 18 to be exact - have fewer than half of the students reading at proficient or advanced levels.

• Lee Sensenbrenner: Marquette, a school for third- through fifth-grade students, partners with Lapham Elementary, which teaches phonics-based reading to its kindergarten through second-grade students.
• Lee Sensenbrenner writes:

  Notable within the district were the two elementary schools that led the county for the percentage of students reading at the advanced level:

  Shorewood Hills, drawing from affluent homes and graduate student housing on the near west side, topped the list with 70.1 percent of its students at the top level.

  Second was Marquette Elementary, a near east side school where more than 28 percent of the students come from low-income homes. There, 65.7 tested at the advanced level, while another 28.6 read at the proficient level.

  This approach, coupled with an individual remedial reading program called Direct Instruction, is somewhat different from the curriculum in other Madison elementary schools.