BY DARRELL HALEN & MATT HERSH

School officials in Salem, Pelham and Windham are reviewing the results of New England Common Assessment Program scores. Last fall, the test was given to students in grades 3 through 8 throughout New Hampshire.

NECAP, which was first used in 2005, is designed to measure student performance on grade level expectations – known as GLEs –  used by New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Results are used for school improvement and accountability, and to comply with requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Students are tested in reading and math, while students in grades 5 and 8 are also tested in writing.

They were tested in the fall of 2006 on content they had learned through the end of the previous grade.

Test-takers place at one of four levels in each subject: proficient with distinction, proficient, partially proficient or substantially below proficient.

Some Salem scores need improvement

After receiving scores, Salem officials are discussing ways to improve learning in coming years.

Though most of Salem’s scores are on par with the state averages or better, there are also areas which are better and others which need improvement.

The district’s math scores were most notable, with 71 percent of students achieving a proficient or proficient with distinction score. This number beats the state average of 65 percent.

Assistant Superintendent Marilyn Woodside said she was also pleased to see the number of students who achieved reading scores of proficient or proficient with distinction. Salem’s students beat the state averages in all grade levels.

Still, within these high scores, there were some drops as students moved from grade to grade.

Since NECAP is an annual test, Woodside said it can be valuable in tracking the progress of each group of students as they grow.

In analyzing these patterns, officials found a few groups whose scores declined over time.

As grade 6 students moved to the next level, their scores dropped slightly in reading. A similar decrease was seen from grade 7 to grade 8.

Woodside and other members of the school board also said they were concerned with the writing scores of their fifth- and eighth-graders.

While both groups scored higher than the state average, the discrepancy between the number of fifth-graders who scored in the top two levels and the number of eighth-graders who did the same is alarming, Woodside said.

Sixty-six percent of fifth-grade students scored in the top two rankings, while only 45 percent of eighth graders did.  This means 55 percent of eighth-grade students scored as partially proficient or below proficient. 

The state showed similar averages with 58 percent of eighth-grade students in the bottom two categories.

“It’s amazing how low the scores are,” said school board member Pamela Berry.  “That just screams the state is in trouble.”

Though Woodside is still looking into the results to find patterns and analyze them further, Superintendent Michael Delahanty said he’d like to see Salem’s scores improve in the future.

“We want to be better than just average,” he said.

Delahanty cited the success of the district’s math program as a model for making strides in the right direction.

“We have something that’s working,” he said. “We just have to move that model to our other programs.”

Pelham scores encouraging

“I think, overall, we were encouraged by the results,” said Roxanne Wilson, assistant superintendent for the Windham and Pelham school districts.

Pelham students are making incremental improvements in mean scaled scores and in the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency, according to Wilson.

Since 2005, Pelham had growth of 4.5 percent of its total students, or about 46 more students, who met proficiency. Pelham improved its scaled score points for a total average increase of 1.5 percent, according to Wilson.

In some areas, Pelham students did better than the statewide results. Data indicates that 86 percent of Pelham third-graders are proficient in reading, compared to 75 percent of the state.

Among grade 7 students, 82 percent of Pelham kids were proficient in reading, compared to a state average of 67 percent.

In some areas, they are on par: grade 6 math (67 percent, both Pelham and state), grade 7 math (63 percent in Pelham, 62 percent state) and grade 8 math (56 Pelham, 57 state).

Comparing the percentage of students who placed at proficient last fall against those who did so in 2005, improvements were made in almost all subjects of all grades.

Wilson said she was disappointed by writing test results of Pelham’s fifth- and eighth-graders. Only 41 percent of fifth-graders scored at the proficient level, while 54 percent of grade 8 test-takers were proficient.

Windham doing well

Results indicate that all  grades scored higher than the state in mean scaled scores and the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency, according to Wilson.   

“Windham had had some great scores,” Wilson said.

In some areas, Windham students scored significantly higher than the state in the percentage of students placing at proficient levels.

In math, 89 percent of third-graders demonstrated proficiency, compared to 69 percent of the state.

Of the grade 7 students tested in math, 88 percent demonstrated proficiency, compared to 62 percent of the state.

The percentage of children who are meeting proficiency rose roughly 5 percent from the previous year.

The only grade that did not improve in the percentage of proficient students and in mean scaled scores was in grade 4.

The percentage of proficient students dropped from 83 to 80 percent in reading, while the percentage went from 82 to 80 percent in math. Mean scaled scores remained constant.