The results from the second year of Smarter Balanced testing in English/language arts and math show that most island students performed exceedingly better than state averages.
The number of students opting out also decreased from the first year.
According to the state report card from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) website, the percentage of students in Vashon schools who met state standards exceeded the state average in every subject except third-grade math: 48 percent of Vashon’s third-graders met math standards compared to 59 percent statewide.
The number of island third graders meeting English/language arts standards was 2 percent higher than the state average.
For fourth graders, 69 percent of island students met both math and English standards compared to 55 percent for math and 57 percent for English, statewide.
Island fifth-graders exceeded state standards by 9 percent in English and 15 percent in math.
Sixth, seventh and eighth graders at McMurray Middle School outperformed students statewide in math by 5 percent, 19 percent and 14 percent respectively. For English, 15 percent more sixth graders, 2 percent more seventh graders and 12 percent more eighth graders met standards on Vashon when compared to state percentages.
“In most cases, our kids scored higher than the state, but there are many districts still calibrating the curriculum,” Vashon Island School District Superintendent Michael Soltman said. “Test scores, statewide, will continue to rise.”
He also said that this was the first year students took the test electronically, and scores will rise as they get more comfortable with the test.
At the high-school level, Vashon High School (VHS) juniors had the largest number of students performing better than state standards on the math test: 43 percent of VHS students met state standards as opposed to 22 percent of high school juniors statewide.
However, OSPI also reports that the island’s high school juniors had the highest opt-out rate with about 110 of the 161 students taking the math test and 19 high school juniors taking the English test. Soltman said the low numbers are due to the fact that taking the tests are not a requirement to graduate.
“The tests don’t count for graduation until this year,” he said. “A lot (of students) just didn’t take them because they weren’t required.”
High school juniors aside, opt-out rates throughout the district dropped from the 2014-2015 school year. Opt-out numbers are below 10 percent for all grades except third and 11th. State-wide, Soltman said 10,000 students did not take the tests — 38 percent.
He said in the 2014 school year, there were so many opt-outs during the 2014-2015 year that the district was unable to draw conclusions from the scores. For example, 21 percent of island third graders last year opted out of the math test, and 40 percent of 1VHS juniors opted out of the math test.
He attributes the lower opt-out numbers this year to parents’ discovery that the tests are reasonable.
“We do a very low amount of testing (in this district),” he said. “I think it (opt-outs) was politically motivated a year ago.”
Overall, Soltman emphasized that the Smarter Balanced tests are “just one measure” of student performance, and graduation rates, honors and college acceptances are also indicators of the success of students at the district.
“By focusing on strong teaching, the test scores will take care of themselves,” he said.
