CSD Touts Successes From the Previous School Year
Decatur Metro | August 23, 2011CSD sent out this release yesterday…
Decatur, GA (2011)- City Schools of Decatur is proud to announce highlights from some of the state-required assessments during the 2010-2011 school year. Students’ achievements certainly stem from their hard work and meaningful family involvement in their education. In addition, a systemic teacher quality initiative has been intentionally implemented over the last two years that seems to correlate to increased student achievement. This initiative has included an implementation of a rigorous teacher evaluation system called CLASS: CLassroom Analysis of State Standards.
Reading scores on the CRCT have rated among the highest in Georgia. Renfroe Middle School had the highest mean CRCT score in the state of Georgia in 8th grade, the second highest in 7th grade, and the 3rd highest in 6th grade.
Science scores were particularly high at three levels: 8th graders had the second highest mean score in the state while 3rd graders and 6th graders had the third highest mean scores in the state of Georgia. In addition, 99% of students at Decatur High School passed the science portion of the Georgia High School Graduation Test.
Math has been an area of focus for City Schools of Decatur during the 2010-2011 school year. Results were strong at Decatur High School where 78% of Math II students passed the End of Course Test in 2010-2011 compared to 60% in 2009-2010.
Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), is a growth measure that provides teachers with valuable data to plan and inform instruction. 2010-11 MAP scores indicate positive growth in both reading and math. Clairemont, Oakhurst, Winnona Park, Renfroe Middle School, and Decatur High School made notable gains towards closing the achievement gap between black and white students in reading. Clairemont, Winnona Park, Renfroe Middle School, and Decatur High School made notable gains towards closing the achievement gap between black and white students in math.
Finally, the Advanced Placement (AP) program at Decatur High School has a strong history, including being named an AP Merit School and AP Honor School during the 2010-2011 school year. Decatur High School uses AP classes as a strategy to curb drop outs and close the achievement gap. AP World History in 10th grade is an important gateway course for students to experience the rigor of a college class. 42% of 10th graders are enrolled in AP World History for the 2011-2012 school year.
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This post is just bait to test our recent FFAF discussion!
Huge grin!!! :0)
BIG PROPS to CSD, the parents, and the kids!!! Really impressive!!!
Free Westchester!
I’m sorry, but these scores are just too unbelievable. I think the teachers are throwing cheating parties and changing test scores.
JUST KIDDING! Congratulations to CSD schools.
In addition, a systemic teacher quality initiative has been intentionally implemented over the last two years that seems to correlate to increased student achievement.
_____________________
Good to know it was intentional, though I suppose an accidental teacher quality initiative might be even more impressive.
we praise you spawn/our future overlords.
I’m paralyzed even though I like this announcement. The “rules” on the other thread said “snarky” was ok but not “nit picking”. “Snarky” seems mean-spirited to me and “nit picking” doesn’t really seem that bad. I enjoy specifics rather than general yays or nays. After all, shouldn’t nits be picked? Isn’t that what the school nurse tells us to do when our kids get lice? We wash their hair with a pediculoside or natural alternative and then comb through their hair painstakingly with metal fine-toothed pick, hair strand by strand, every day for weeks. The nit picking isn’t a reflection on the children, nor do we burn their hair although I’ve been tempted, but the lice are a problem, albeit not a big one, and we just pick those nits until they are gone.
No offense, but what the hell are you talking about?
Deanne’s rules for posting comments about CSD:
“Short version:
Happy posts: Good!
Issues posts: Good!
Helpful comments: Good!
Snarky comments: Good!
Ugly comments: Not good!
Nitty Nitpicking comments: Not good!
Neverending Ax-Grinding comments: Not good!
Karass? Where is your husband?! I need advice!
(Obviously, folks will carry on exactly as they’d like. Not rules. An attempt at a recap for Karass’s benefit… lordy, now I’ve got her researching nits…)
Not research! Intense personal experience! Head lice have become a routine part of growing up these days. Never had them as a kid but got them during one of the three episodes of lice that my children have had. Husband never got them so he does not have my extensive experience with nit picking!
My first grader came home with one of those, ‘a child in your class has lice’ notes the other day.
After a moment of pause, I blamed the CSD.
Just remember, the cleaner the hair, the more lice like it. Dirty hair can be a good thing.
Other tips:
– Girls with long hair–keep hair in braids or “up” or otherwise restrained from intermingling with other hair
– Always send your child with their own pillow on sleepovers, sleepaway camp etc.
– Ditto for sending them with their own brush
– Do not let your children use your own brush because the only thing worse than having children with lice is having them yourself
– Malathion works but it’s quite toxic
– None of the other over-the-counter or alternative treatments work great but you feel better if you use them and I’ve been known to use several at once
– Fastidious nit-picking works, given enough time
Yet another plus of not having youngsters of my own– I never have to pick nits!!!
It is definitely not a high point of parenthood! Whoever invents an easy, non-toxic, fool-proof method for killing both the lice and the nits will make a fortune. Current safe methods only slow the critters down; hence the nit picking. But what really scares me is…………bed bugs!
If you can stick with the program (which is fairly long and tiresome), this stuff is non-toxic, fool-proof, and eliminates the need to pick nits. Highly recommended (from experience!):
http://www.licehelp.com/
I hope I never have to use this information. But if I do and this stuff works, this may be in the top two or three most DM comments that have been most valuable to me!
ACK!! BLECK!!! ACK!!!ACK!!!ACK!!!
(Nothing’s wrong with detailed comments. Go for it. Really! Before you burst! When you sense that eyeballs are starting to roll, then please take pity on us and stop! :0)
+1
+1
I’ve got Deanne’s permission!: I like this announcement a lot, especially the tone of the first paragraph where it is commending students, families, and teachers! Also like that it gives good info about AP History, MAP testing, school specifics. Would love link to table that has the results for all grades since the reader might not have children in the grades described.
Glad that Math EOC test scores are improving and hope CSD continues to jump all over math performance. I keep wondering about Everyday Math–I’ve spent years helping kids with homework, tutoring, classroom math and the appeal of it still escapes me. But I know some like it. After elementary school, the trick seems to be in finding and retaining people who are effective in teaching math. There seems to be an incredible shortage of those folks and the turnover is high. This seems to have been true throughout time. Maybe math instructor positions should be paid at a higher rate, e.g. at the level of instructional coaches or other educator specialists? It’s not that math should be valued over other subjects; it’s just a supply and demand issue.
+1 .Nice report card.
Congratulations to the CSD administration, the teachers and the students! I’m proud not only of the achievement, but also of the fact that we can hold our heads up amidst all of the local cheating scandals.
IMHO, the impressive results from CSD are in no small part related to:
1. Involved parents
2. Small school district (helps #1 above)
3. Healthy tax base
Most of the rest of the reasons for success are downstream from these primary drivers. With that said, you can’t discount the CSD staff. Hats off to the hard work and focus of the CSD teachers and leadership.
+ 1
One qualifier to my +1: I would still separate out high quality teachers for special mention. Even in totally dysfunctional school systems, some high quality teachers are able to be effective, reach students, and improve student performance, at least for a year. And even in great school districts, it’s important to identify the few underperforming teachers and help them improve or change to more appropriate positions. If all the permanent teachers are good to great instructors, then parents don’t get anxious about who gets which teacher which makes life easier for the administration plus all the students get a good to great education.
+1 @ Karass
Quite true, yes.