THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 5, 1996 TAG: 9608050034
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 106 lines
Parents with children at Bowling Park and Tarrallton elementary schools say they never had any doubts. School administrators have become believers, too.
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. has called a news conference today to announce that the schools' remarkable improvement on standardized test scores, called into question near the end of this past school year, is just that: remarkable. Cheating has been ruled out.
The test scores of fourth-graders who retook a different version of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in late May confirmed the impressive gains recorded on the first testing in March, school officials said.
While the overall average score dipped on the retesting, they fell within an acceptable range to validate the improvement, officials said.
Bowling Park's overall average score on reading, language skills and math dropped from the 90th percentile in March to the 75th percentile in May; Tarrallton's average score dropped from the 79th percentile to the 69th percentile.
The national average falls at the 50th percentile.
Nichols, who ordered the retesting, attributes the drop in scores to stressful conditions: Many students and parents resented being singled out, he said, and many kids probably were distracted for the retesting, just days before summer vacation.
Some Bowling Park parents called the retesting racially motivated. The school is one of the city's 10 majority-black elementary schools and has a high population of disadvantaged students.
PTA officials said parents resented the implication that the schools had cheated or that their kids weren't capable of high scores.
``This proves to anyone who had doubts that our children are capable of learning and retaining what they've been taught,'' said Yvonn Hardy, Bowling Park's PTA president. ``Our children are capable of achieving, regardless of what the circumstances are.''
After the retesting at Bowling Park, only two other elementary schools can boast an average overall score that was higher in math, reading and language - Taylor and Larchmont, both of which draw students from predominantly white, middle-class neighborhoods. Larchmont scored in the 82nd percentile, while Taylor scored in the 78th.
The standardized tests measure what students have learned in a range of subjects, from reading and language to math and science.
``Both schools have demonstrated enviable student achievement levels, and are to be congratulated for outstanding academic achievement,'' Nichols said of Bowling Park and Tarrallton in a prepared statement released today.
Nichols said the school system, intent on raising the academic bar for black and low-income students, has plans to study instructional practices at the two schools to help other city schools improve.
Bowling Park, featured recently in Time magazine, has gained national attention for its efforts to boost the performance of urban children and to generate community support.
School officials ``should come forth and make a public apology to the children, the faculty and the parents,'' said Bowling Park parent James E. Baker. ``Those children did the very best they could and they came out excellent - and they did it honestly.''
Baker said he promised his daughter cable TV if she did well on the test. ``She put her heart and soul into that test,'' he said.
Despite the potential for criticism, Nichols decided to retest students because their improvement on the Iowa tests this year was so much higher than their performance as third-graders. Administration officials, though, called the retesting part of a ``routine audit'' of test scores.
In certain categories tested last March, scores at Bowling Park doubled over the previous year, jumping by more than 40 percentile points and placing them among the top 10 percent of students nationwide. Tarrallton's gains were impressive but not as dramatic.
The previous year, as third graders, the students at Bowling Park had earned a ``composite'' or average score at the 56th percentile on math, reading and language skills. The Tarrallton fourth-graders had a composite score at the 53rd percentile the previous year.
Testing experts say a gain of 10 percentile points from one year to the next is considered reasonable. Increases such as those at Bowling Park and Tarrallton are ``really dramatic,'' said Gerald W. Bracey, who spent 10 years as director of testing for the Virginia Department of Education.
``It's not impossible, but it's not likely without some kind of intervention happening,'' Bracey said.
According to the principals at the two schools, that's exactly what occurred. Herman D. Clark Jr., principal of Bowling Park, said teachers tutored students before and after school and held Saturday classes for two months before the March testing. Clark also said his teachers and parents hold high expectations for the children.
``These kids are getting more than the typical, average remediation or instruction - we didn't have normal circumstances,'' Clark said. ``It's just hard work and consistency.''
Tarrallton principal Charles W. Clay said teachers worked with students on test-taking techniques and purchased material from publishing companies that was used to prep students for their encounter with the Iowa tests.
``There's nothing magic about it,'' Clay said. ``I think what we have over here are extremely dedicated and enthusiastic teachers.'' ILLUSTRATION: AVERAGE SCORES
Although overall scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills dropped,
they remained within an acceptable range to validate the initial
improvement.
Bowling Park
March 90th percentile
May 75th percentile
Tarrallton
March 79th percentile
May 69th percentile
KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZED TESTING NORFOLK SCHOOLS by CNB