Dear readership (aka Mom and Aunt Benita):
I really don’t know why it has taken me so long to get on here and finally blog about the end of the year. I could say it was the necessary “detox” I needed to go through or just because the end of the year was really rough, but regardless, here we go. Stay tuned for an update overload, with EOG results, end of year pictures, student survey responses etc!
To start off, I want to cover the cumbersome, but all important EOG results. As much as we don’t want to say it, this is what measures our success as teachers and the success of our students, quantitatively anyway.
So as a brief reminder, the students take an EOG at the end of the year and get a score back from it. The score in 7th grade math can range from a 332 up to a 382. Then, this scale is broken down into four ranges, known as Levels I, II, III, and IV. If a student’s score is a Level I or II, they are considered to be “below grade level” and have a “failing” score, even though it doesn’t necessarily mean they fail the subject or the grade (and in the type of school I’m in, there are large numbers of students who score in these ranges year after year). Scores in the Level III range are considered “on grade level” and passing, and Level IV would be “above grade level” and also passing. Typically a student needs to receive a Level IV in order to be in Honors classes.
A student is typically expected to grow from year to year, and the state makes a prediction as to what their score will be, basing this prediction off that students’ previous 3 years of testing. When looking at growth, they say that 4 points (on the 332-382 scale) is about a years worth of growth, 8 points is like 2 years, 12 points is like 3 years, and so on. If you remember reading this or this, then you will remember that I set a Big Goal in my class for all students to grow 10 points on their EOG. Obviously, 10 points is a major goal because that’s about 2.5 years of growth in one year. I knew when making this goal that it was going to be too ambitious for some, but if you are striving for something way out there, the distance you grow will still be really great. (What’s that saying…reach for the moon, cause even if you don’t reach it, at least you’ll be among the stars…or something like that.) The reason I set the goal at 10 points is because the “levels” are spaced out by about 10 points. Therefore, growing about 10 points would almost guarantee each student to go from their current “level” to the “next level”.
With that little bit of background, I have tried to organize the many ways to look at all of the data into easily understandable snippets that highlight just how AWESOME the majority of my students did.
***Disclaimer: If you remember, my principal did a major schedule/class roster shake up mid-year which I wrote about here and here. Therefore, I might have ended the year with 90 students, and had taught an addition 15 at some point, but instead of referring to all the students who were with me at certain, limited times, I will only provide the data that is the most valid: the data from the 69 students that were with me ALL year, from start to finish!
- Pass rate: 81%. That means that 81% or 56 out of 69 passed the test. If you compare this to last year’s 92% pass rate, it looks like a drop, but the difference is the kids that I taught this year. Last year, nearly every single student I taught was supposed to pass, coming to me with Level III’s from the year before. This year, however, I started off with 8 I’s, 12 II’s, 31 III’s, and 18 IV’s. So, considering that 49/69 or 71% passed in 6th grade, this groups pass rate came up TEN percentage points to 56/69 or 81%! And at the end, only one student had a I, 12 had II’s, 28 had III’s, and 27 had IV’s!!!
- Met Expected: A big thing the school looks at is how many student met their expected score. Even though it would seem that each kid is expected to grow the 4-ish points that represents a year of growth, due to the fact that it is determined by their individual testing over the previous 3 years, some students are expected to grow much more, some around that 4 point area, and others are even expected to go backward. But at the end of it all, the school looks at how many met their expected. With my students, 51 of the 69 met their expected growth. Out of the 18 that didn’t, 9 of them were Honors students, which as I have come to understand, are the students that are the most at risk of not meeting their expected because once you are at the top, you can easily waver from year to year. The other 9 students were from my regular 7th grade classes, and almost ALL of them missed their expected score by 1-2 points!
- Year to Year Averages: At this point I think it would be better to separate my Honors class out.
- Honors class: On average, this group of 29 came in with an EOG score of a 365 (high Level III) and finished with an average score of 369 (Level IV), showing as a group, a 4 point increase. This tells me that even though a lot of them were already “above grade level” that they were still able to grow the one year they should have, on average.
- Regular classes: On average, this group of 40 came in with an EOG score of a 351 (Level II), and finished with an average score of 358 (Level III), showing as a group, a 7 point increase! This might be one of the statistics that impressed me the most. The average student in my regular classes grew almost 2 years worth! This was a point of pride for the students and myself at the end of the year!
- Big Goal: With the Big Goal being a 10 point growth, I was really unsure how many students would actually get there, or even get close. To my surprise, 16 students had growth of 10+ points, and another 9 students grew 8-9 points. I rewarded all 25 students because they either hit the Big Goal or came really close, and ALL showed growth of 2+ years in one year. A point of pride for my regular classes was that out of those 25 kids…a whopping 19 of them came from my 1st or 3rd blocks (the regular 7th grade classes) and only 6 were from the 4th block Honors class. Again, this is due to the lack of major growth shown by Honors kids being typical.
- Honors Class: My Honors students not only learned the entire 7th grade curriculum, but about 90% of the 8th grade curriculum in ONE YEAR! This was not there fault, and was due to a slip-up on the part of the 6th grade teachers the year before. Regardless, they hung with me as I taught my face off to get them ready for Algebra. I was worried at the end of the year that it was going to be too much, knowing they were still required to take, and do well on, the 7th grade EOG. Coming in, 18/29 had Level IV’s, but the rumor is that they HAVE to get a Level IV to go to Algebra. My group ended with 23 Level IV’s, with only 6 missing the mark. And 3 of the 6 were only a point away and would most likely still be considered for Algebra. Overall, I was so very proud of the Honors class!
- Individual Recognition: Finally, I would like to point out a few of the best individual stories from the testing data.
- First of all, SH is the student that I was convinced would make the highest growth out of all my students. I have been saying it all year. She came in as a Level I and has been one of my most hardworking, most respectful, just all around good students. She not only ended with the largest amount of growth for me, but she had the largest amount of growth of anyone in the 7th grade (and probably the whole school). SH grew 17 points!!! That’s over 4 years worth in one year. She not only went from a Level I to a Level II, but ended as a Level III and passing score! Following closely behind here are 3 students who had 15 points of growth, just under 4 years!
- In addition to being able to claim the student with the most growth, I also can claim the student who made the highest score in the grade level (with a 380, just 2 points shy of a perfect score). Go RC!
- I had four students from my regular 7th grade classes score a Level IV, putting them “above grade level” and now potentially on track to go into Honors. One of those students didn’t just get a IV but it was actually a higher IV than a lot of my Honors kids! Go AW, MS, AB, and JT!
- DG is the repeater that I have spoken of in the past, who I have now had the pleasure/trials of teaching for two years. I will be writing a separate blog entry about him soon, so stay tuned. But in reference to his scores, he has consistently received either Level I’s or low Level II’s all through school. This year, his second time around, he grew 10 points, met our Big Goal, caught up 2.5 years, and ended just 2 points shy of a Level III!
- Another repeater that I had, IW, grew 8 points himself and got his first ever Level III in math!
- One girl is a particularly funny story and I think highlights how important it is that we don’t give up on students, and, at least with certain students, just being given an opportunity to do something is all they need. This student, MM, was given to me during the first week of the year because of “behavior issues” she was having with the longterm sub in the Vacant Math Class. What my Assistant Principal failed to notice however, is that she was moving her to me during 4th block, when I teach Honors. MM was not coming from an Honors class. However, I figured once things settled in I could correct the problem. But then MM started outperforming some of my Honors students and demonstrating that she was definitely capable of staying with the Honors pace. I pulled her aside for a chat one day where she explained to me that she has been in Honors in 6th grade, but they didn’t keep her in Honors for 7th because of her grades, EOG score (which was a Level III), and her behavior. I decided, as long as nobody saw a issue with it, I was just gonna let is slide under the rug and be forgotten about because I saw something in this girl that I believed in. Fast forward to the end of the year and MM not only got herself a Level IV, but grew 13 points, growing over 3 years, and scoring higher than HALF of the other Honors students! Go MM! That one “snafu” will end up landing MM in Algebra next year, and if she can keep her head on straight and stop getting suspended so much (she’s a fireball getting in fights and cussing out teachers) she is much closer to going to college then the majority of her peers.
Great Job!! Great Scores and btw…I bet your Mom and I are not the only ones that read this. Love the stories about the individual students like MM.