County schools’ writing scores improve slightly
• About half of North Carolina’s and two-thirds of Columbus County’s public school students still can’t pass the state’s writing test.
By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer
The Columbus County Schools have seen increases in the state writing test scores of its fourth, seventh and 10th graders.
“We’re excited with what is happening,” Superintendent Dan Strickland told his board last week. “We have seen improvement overall.”
The system’s fourth graders saw a 0.9-point increase going from 34.2 percent proficient to 35.1 percent proficient. The state’s fourth graders had a 2.7-point increase, from 50 to 52.7 percent proficient.
Seventh graders saw a 7.1-point gain, going from 23.1 percent to 30.2 percent. Statewide, seventh graders had a 4.6-point increase, from 46.2 to 50.8 percent proficient.
Tenth graders had the most growth – 8.2 points – in the system, going from 27.2 percent proficient to 35.4 percent. Statewide, tenth graders dropped 1.8 points from 53.2 percent to 51.4 percent proficient.
“Our scores were very low last year,” said Paul Pope, the county school’s director of testing and accountability. “We have already started to analyze this year’s results.”
Pope said that it isn’t just the responsibility of fourth grade teachers to teach writing. He said the results are accumulative and that all teachers are responsible.
Agatha Brown, the system’s K-5 curriculum coordinator, said that a new program being used by the system’s elementary schools – “Write from the Beginning” – was showing a lot of promise at the schools where it has been implemented, most notably Evergreen Elementary School which enjoyed a 36.7 percent in crease in is fourth grade writing proficiency rate.
The school went from 32.1 percent proficient last year to 68.8 percent this year.
Evergreen ranked first in fourth grade writing proficiency rates in the county followed by Cerro Gordo Elementary (53.3 percent), Old Dock Elementary (46.3 percent), Williams Township Elementary (38.8 percent), Hallsboro-Artesia Elementary (37.7 percent), Chadbourn Elementary (31.9 percent), Acme-Delco Elementary (31 percent), Tabor City Elementary (21.4 percent), Fair Bluff Elementary (22 percent) and Guideway Elementary (12.5 percent).
Old Dock saw an increase of 14.7 points while Hallsboro-Artesia had a 10.1-point increase.
Fair Bluff had a 23.2-point drop. Tabor City Elementary had a 18.8-point drop while Guideway had a 13.4 percent drop.
Old Dock Elementary saw the highest gain for seventh graders – 19.5 points, going from 20 percent proficient to 39.5 percent.
Evergreen Elementary was first in seventh grade writing performance with 50 percent of its students scoring a proficient followed by Old Dock Elementary (39.2 percent), Williams Township Elementary (38.3 percent), Acme-Delco Middle (37.3 percent), Hallsboro Middle (29.1 percent), Guideway Elementary (26.1 percent), Cerro Gordo Elementary, 23.3 percent), Chadbourn Middle (23 percent), Tabor City Middle (21.8 percent) and Fair Bluff Elementary (11.1 percent).
Evergreen had a 15.1-point improvement, Acme-Delco Middle had a 14.4-point increase, Guideway improved 13.6 points and Chadbourn and Tabor City middle schools improved 10.7 and 10.8 points respectively.
Fair Bluff saw a 25.3-point decline in its seventh-grade proficiency rate for writing.
East Columbus High School’s 10th graders saw the biggest improvement in proficiency rates going from 24 percent proficient to 39.7 percent proficient – a 15.7-point gain.
East Columbus High School had the most 10th graders to pass the writing test followed by South Columbus High School at 35.6 percent proficient and West Columbus High School with 32 percent proficient.
Strickland pointed out that at many of the schools that suffered declines, the teachers were new and that it’s a different set of children each year.
Grades K-5 curriculum coordinator Agatha Brown said that the system knows it’s moving in the right direction.
Brown said that many of the students fell short of scoring Level III’s or proficient because they failed to correctly apply writing conventions such as spelling, grammar, capitalization and punctuation.
Strickland said that it will take at least three years for new writing programs to show marked improvement in test scores.
He encouraged principals to send teachers to observe the teachers who are seeing writing successes in their classrooms.
Pope said that a mock writing assessment held earlier in the year was of great value to the teachers. It allowed them to see how students are handling the state’s test and then concentrate in the weak areas.
“The teachers had real paper to look at,” Pope said. “The light bulbs were going on using the state’s rubric with our own test.”
A rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessments, using a set of criteria and standards linked to learning objectives that is used to assess a student’s performance on the tests.
Strickland said that the system’s principals had training sessions so they would know what to look for in the way of writing during their weekly visits to the classrooms.
Phyllis Pope, the grades 6-8 curriculum coordinator. said that it will be vital to get all teachers on board when it comes to writing.
Kathy Lewis, the grades 9-12 curriculum coordinator said that this year had been a training year for many of the new writing programs.
“We’ve not had a full year of implementation,” she said. “It’s a three-year process.”
South Columbus High School Principal Maudie Davis said the writing program at SCHS had been very positive.
“Our children take it very seriously,” she said. “With training, next year, they will do much better. They have positive attitudes.”
East Columbus High School Principal Mark Bridgers said the teachers at his school had enjoyed the writing workshops.
“It’s working across the curriculum,” he said. “We want to do it again next year.”
He said that for any student at ECHS who scores a Level III or IV on the writing tests, he will buy them a steak dinner.
West Columbus High School Principal-elect Mark Brown said his teachers came back from the writing workshop with a lot of enthusiasm.
“This year, we’re going to teach the other teachers to integrate writing into their curriculums,” he said.
Strickland said that when the high school principals saw what was happening to their writing scores, they used available funds for professional development to train teachers to push writing scores up.
“One of our teachers said it was one of the best workshops she had ever been to,” Brown said.
“I feel like we’re on the right track,” said Assistant Superintendent Alan Faulk. “The kids worked the hardest this year of anything I’ve seen in a long time.”
Strickland said that the emphasis has not been placed in writing for a long time and that teachers face a battle with computers, instant messaging and text massaging, none of which promote good writing skills.
Davis said better writing scores will ultimately help with better SAT scores and its 25 minutes of essay-writing.
“I saw children working harder,” she said of the improved writing. “We will see better results. All of this will benefit college applications and essays.
“Writing doesn’t stop with the tenth grade,” he said. “It must also be there for the SAT.”
Paul Pope said that overall, most assessments are multiple choice.
He said the writing test requires a different thought process.
“This is a thinking piece,” he said. “You have to think to write well.”
As for improving the conventions of writing, Pope said that everyone from the administration on down is going to have to model proper grammar, spelling, punctuation and noun-verb agreement.