Mercer Island School District Test Scores Tops in State

The Mercer Island 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.

Managing MISD's testing process, Learning and Technology Director Jennifer Wright presented the positive 2011 results to the school board at its Sept. 8 meeting.

"As per our past performance, our students have done well," Wright said. "70 percent was the state average. We are in the 90s."

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, Mercer Island math scores stayed the same or improved, except for eighth and fourth grades. The fourth grade dropped 1 percent, while the eighth grade saw a larger 9 percent drop.

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.”

Mercer Island Superintendent Gary Plano said the district compared favorably to other top-performing, peer school districts in the state and on the Eastside, pointing out that school comparison website SchoolDigger.com gave the MISD a #1 ranking of all districts in the state.

"The right comparison is to made with the schools in our neighborhood," said School Board Director Dave Myerson, which he said included Bainbridge Island, Bellevue and Issaquah (see below for a direct comparison to MSP/HSPE test scores from neighboring school district Bellevue).

However, some reading scores in Mercer Island dropped. The percentage of Mercer Island seventh graders who passed the reading test was 4.6 percentage points fewer the previous year, and the percentage of eighth graders who passed the reading test was 1.4 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 Mercer Island scores, click here to look at the district report card prepared by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Mercer Island vs. Bellevue

Grade Level

M.I. Reading

Bellevue  Reading

M.I. Math

Bellevue Math

M.I. Writing

Bellevue  Writing

M.I. Science

Bellevue  Science

3rd Grade

92.4%

83.9%

89.1%

79.2%

4th Grade

91.7%

75.6%

84.9%

72.8%

88.4%

80.7%

5th Grade

92.7%

78.6%

88.5%

79.9%

89.5%

71.4%

6th Grade

92.1%

80.4%

90.4%

75.3%

7th Grade

87.6%

71.3%

88.9%

78.0%

94.1%

86.2%

8th Grade

88.6%

80.9%

78.3%

72.9%

90.0%

80.0%

10th Grade

93.6%

90.3%

95.4%

92.8%

85.8%

71.2%

10th Grade Math End of Course

Mercer Island

Bellevue

Year 1

(Algebra)

88.0%

88.6%

Year 2

(Geometry)

96.0%

86.6%