Traverse City Record-Eagle

Region

July 23, 2010

Students' reading, math scores improve

BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

lvanhulle@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — High school juniors across the five-county region continue to gain proficiency on state standardized tests, and educators point to a new teaching strategy as a factor.

Results from the spring Michigan Merit Exam, or MME, released Thursday show students in Traverse City Area Public Schools performed slightly better than last year’s 11th-graders in reading, math and science.

The test is given annually to juniors. It includes the ACT college entrance exam and a skills test.

Traverse City’s results show 65 percent of juniors met or exceeded state benchmarks in math, 78 percent in reading, 72 percent in science, 88 percent in social studies and 57 percent in writing.

The latter two subjects were down from 90 percent and 59 percent, respectively, in 2009. Students performed better than the state average in all areas.

They are the first students who will be required by law to meet the more stringent graduation standards approved by the Legislature four years ago. The standards include more mandatory math and science classes.

That could explain why “we are seeing some nice upward trends,” interim Superintendent Jayne Mohr said. “I think over time, we’ll see these results improve even more.”

With the exception of social studies, students across the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District improved in each area since the exam launched three years ago.

In reading, 73 percent of juniors met benchmarks this year, up from 67 percent in 2007, according to TBAISD data. In writing, 51 percent of students passed, compared to 47 percent in 2007.

Writing continues to be the weakest subject area across the state.

Teacher training emphasizes reviewing achievement data in groups and discussing ways to personalize instruction, said Jason Jeffrey, TBAISD’s assistant superintendent of general and technical education.

It provides a clearer picture of what works and what doesn’t.

“We’re really trying to drill down to the individual student,” he said, adding that a focus on literacy, particularly at the elementary level, is one result. “We haven’t seen (yet on the MME) the fruits of the work we’ve done with the early grades.”

Statewide public school scores improved in math, science, reading and writing. The percentage of Michigan students scoring proficient or better in those subjects are the highest in the four-year history of the exam.

Scores declined in social studies.

Only 44 percent of those taking the writing test scored proficient or above. But that percentage has improved for three straight years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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