Bellevue Schools Outscore State Peers in Assessment Tests

The Bellevue School District as a whole outscored their state peers on 2010-11 school assessment tests, according to scores released Tuesday Aug. 30 by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

That includes the new math End of Course tests, that are designed to be taken directly following a high school students' algebra or geometry class.

The new math tests were redesigned and given last year for the first time to address complaints that the old high school Washington Assessment of Student Learning math tests were not clear and were often not related to the actual classes that students were taking.

“The results from the end-of-course exams are encouraging, but we still have plenty of work to do to increase our math scores,” said state superintendent Randy Dorn in a prepared statement. “I believe the first-time passing rates are improved from the days of the old math WASL for two primary reasons: teachers have told me our new math learning standards are clearer and students are taking the exams at the end of their respective classes.”

Students no longer take the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, which was the longtime measure for how students were learning the state standards. The state assessment tests have been reformulated into the the Measures of Student Progress for grades 3-8 and the High School Proficiency Exam for grade 10.

As a district, Bellevue math scores stayed the same or improved, except for eighth and fourth grades, which saw a less than 2 percent dip.

The state as a whole saw improvement in math, except for eighth grade.

“We have made math a high priority in this state, so it’s gratifying to see the improvement,” Dorn said. “I give our state’s educators a lot of credit. This has been a statewide effort, from the people who wrote the new math standards to those who teach our students. We must maintain this positive momentum.”

However, some reading scores in Bellevue dropped. The percentage of Bellevue fourth graders who passed the reading test was 6.5 percentage points fewer the previous year, and the percentage of fifth graders who passed the reading test was 3.3 percentage points fewer than the previous year. That passing percentage still was higher than the state as a whole, but those drops were not mirrored in the state scores.

For more detail on the Bellevue scores, click here to look at the district report card prepared by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Bellevue vs. the State

Grade Level

State Reading

Bellevue  Reading

State Math

Bellevue Math

State Writing

Bellevue  Writing

State Science

Bellevue  Science

3rd Grade

73.1%

83.9%

61.5%

79.2%

4th Grade

67.3%

75.6%

59.3%

72.8%

61.4%

80.7%

5th Grade

67.6%

78.6%

61.2%

79.9%

55.6%

71.4%

6th Grade

70.6%

80.4%

58.8%

75.3%

7th Grade

56.4%

71.3%

56.9%

78.0%

71.0%

86.2%

8th Grade

68.6%

80.9%

50.3%

72.9%

61.5%

80.0%

10th Grade

82.3%

90.3%

86.0%

92.8%

49.7%

71.2%

10th Grade Math End of Course

State

Bellevue

Year 1

62.4%

88.6%

Year 2

72.9%

86.6%