Milwaukee Public Schools shows slight gain in reading, math scores on national exam

Erin Richards, via a kind Wisconsin Reading Coalition email:

Milwaukee Public Schools students' average reading and math scores on a national exam ticked up slightly in fourth and eighth grade between 2009 and 2013, according to a new report released Wednesday.

But -- and there always seems to be a "but" -- only the score change in eighth-grade math was statistically significant over those years.

And compared with the performance of 20 other urban districts in 2013, MPS ranked in the bottom four for math and the bottom six for reading.

Still, MPS officials were optimistic about the latest results of the Trial Urban District Assessment, praising the district's average scale-score increases in reading and math in fourth and eighth grades over the past two years -- even though federal statisticians said those changes did not fall outside the margin of testing error.

"Would we like to see statistically significant change? Sure," said Melanie Stewart, MPS director of assessment. "But in all four areas, we are trending in the positive direction."

Results from the urban district assessment come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a government-sponsored exam administered about every two years that's considered the best gauge of how students are doing in reading and math.

National and state results on the 2013 assessment were released last month.

....

Fuller said MPS and community leaders need to think about reaching out to other urban districts showing improvement.

"We can't keep acting like there's nobody out there teaching poor, young black and brown students how to read," Fuller said.

Related: Madison's long term, disastrous reading results.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 22, 2013 3:54 AM
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