Burgess scores well on MCAS

By Jonathan Cook
Turley Publications Reporter

STURBRIDGE - “Your school was recognized by the state Department of Education for being one of the schools that made the most growth for children who are in our low income category,” Assistant Superintendent Beth Schaper reported to the Burgess Elementary School Committee last week.
“One of three schools recognized,” Schaper went on to say. “That’s quite a badge of honor.”
According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Web site, of 68 students considered low income, four percent scored advanced, 38 percent were proficient, 38 percent landed in needs improvement and 19 percent placed in the warning category for English Language Arts (ELA).
In math, 13 percent were advanced, 21 percent proficient, 49 percent needs improvement and 18 percent warning.
The rest of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test scores showed a school doing a good job, Schaper reported.
“Burgess had a very wonderful year as far as the piece of education that MCAS measures,” Schaper said. “And other pieces as well, but this piece really looks great.”
According to DESE the school’s performance rating in both ELA and math is “high.” The school did not, however, meet the state’s target or Composite Performance Index (CPI) in ELA with a score falling 2.8 points short of the target. In math the CPI was surpassed by 0.9 points. Therefore the school made AYP or Adequate Yearly Progress, according to the state, in math, but not ELA.
In math Burgess is on a “very high trajectory toward getting all kids to meet the achievement goals they’re supposed to meet in 2012,” Schaper said. “Participation and attendance are excellent,” she added.
Principal Daniel Carlson pointed out the test is getting more difficult each year. “To give you an idea of why that goal can frequently be hard to reach, when MCAS tests are given, if there are questions that are frequently answered correctly by a large percentage of people, they toss those out and put more difficult questions in there,” he said.
While ELA may have fallen short of the state target, scores were above the state average in both ELA and math. In fact, “the school is outpacing the state average in all grade levels in both English Language Arts and math,” Schaper said.
What’s more, student scores in mathematics tracked over the past three years from fourth grade to sixth show an increase from 19 to 38 percent in the combined categories of advanced and proficient while the percentage in the combined categories of warning and needs improvement have decreased from 41 to 34 percent. In ELA the bottom category dropped from 35 to 20 percent and rose from 65 to 69 percent at the top.
“When we look at children who go through Burgess you can see a trend line that shows it’s on a really steep trajectory of moving kids out of warning into advanced,” Schaper said. “What we need is to get all children out of warning.”
She added, “Burgess is doing a really nice job and we hope to see that trajectory continue.”
A recent professional development day yielded “improvement opportunities,” Carlson said.
“The team here is wonderfully acclimated to using the data,” said Schaper. Burgess is “a very large building full of kids and they know exactly how to get children into the right situation to give them the help that they need. We never forget about the kids who aren’t making it yet.
Calling fourth grade math scores “a beautiful story,” Schaper pointed out that 67 percent Burgess students “made very high growth in math compared with 20 percent statewide.”
Schaper said next year’s analysis will provide growth data for each student so that “regardless of where they come in on the achievement plain, we can see if our education causes them to grow.”
Chairman Kate Alexander asked Schaper to come back at a future date to go over the reports again. For that session, the public will be invited.