Test Scores Continue Upward Trend in Falls

The Wisconsin Department of Instruction released the results of the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam Tuesday, and the overall test results are another positive indicator of what has been a successful year for Menomonee Falls students academically.

“These are the absolute best performance indicators we have seen in this district,” said Superintendent Keith Marty. “Look at our AP scores, look at out ACT scores and graduation rate. They are all rising.”

Students in third grade through eighth grade, and 10th grade took the WKCE test in November. The standardized test measures the academic proficiency of students in math, science, social studies, language and reading. Student understanding in each subject area falls under four categories; advanced, proficient, basic or minimum performance.

Reading and math scores across the district continued their upward progression, and 90 percent of students are either proficient or advanced in the both subjects. Student achievement in reading and math has risen for each of the past four years.

The number of students proficient or higher in science and social studies also rose slightly to 86 percent and 90.7 percent respectively, which is a shift of less than a percent in each. However, students scoring proficient or advanced levels in language fell from 81.2 percent in 2009 to 77 percent in 2010.

The percentage of Falls students testing above the proficient level exceeded the state by nearly 10 percentage points in all subject areas. At the high school level, 80 percent of students scored proficient or higher in each of the subjects tested.

Percentage of District Students Scoring Advanced or Proficient:

“Overall, what we would conclude is that we are making steady and continuous improvement in our student test performance,” Marty said. ““Just to think, that four or five years ago, it would be very rare to see most of our student groups at 90 percent or greater.”

District students improved in 17 of 23 categories tested on the WKCE this year. The high school graduation rate has risen from 95 percent in 2006 to 98 percent 2009. ACT scores continue to hover around 23, and the number of students taking Advanced Placement Exams continues to rise each year

“Menomonee Falls is teaching better than they ever have,” said School Board President Kathy Shurilla. “There’s a misperception in the community that test scores are going down and have been going down for a number of years.”

Language scores fall

Only fourth-, eighth- and tenth-grade students are tested in language each year. Scores for students in eighth grade declined sharply after three years of steady growth, and raised a red flag for Director of Curriculum and Assessment Kathy Myles.

The percentage of eighth-graders scoring above the proficient level fell significantly from 79.8 percent in 2009 to 66.1 percent in 2010. Throughout the three grade levels tested, 22 percent of the students tested at basic or minimal performance.

“That was the weakest area of the test data, and the one anomaly,” Myles said. “In our item analysis, our particular strand was language and there were six questions that related to that. Those six questions impacted us.”

Myles said of the three areas tested in the language portion of the test, students struggled the most with grammar and sentence structure questions. She said these would be points of emphasis as they adapt the curriculum to address this decline.

District trails neighbors by a small margin

Reading and math scores in Menomonee Falls still trail neighboring school districts like Hamilton, Elmbrook and Germantown. However, it isn’t by much.

Of the four districts, Germantown students performed at the highest overall level on the WKCE tests. At least 90 percent of Germantown students scored at proficient or above in all five tested subjects.

The percentage of Falls students scoring above proficient level in reading and math trails Hamilton, Elmbrook and Germantown by a range one to four percentage points depending on the district. Myles said Falls is close to its neighbors, but there’s still a small gap to close.

“We are in the same ballpark but we still want to continue to push for improvements,” Myles said. “We have been working on our curriculum toward a standards based curriculum, and we are shifting our thinking from getting students from just knowing, to understanding the material so the learning sticks.”

Percentage of Students Scoring Advanced or Proficient in Neighboring Districts: