PLAYING CATCH UP

Written by Don Coberly. RISE/TVEP Executive Director

During Governor Little's Task Force meetings last fall session,  Idaho legislator Mr. Gary Marshall sounded a warning to his colleagues with regard to kindergarten readiness. 

“Over the summer I’ve heard a lot of talk about how 60 percent of kids are not ready for kindergarten,” Marshall said. “I would hope we could change that message and get back to a different concept and that is, I believe absolutely every child is ready for kindergarten.”If you look at the long-term implications of that, then you’re pretty sure 60 percent of kids aren’t ready to be 4-year-olds or be in pre-k and it just keeps going on down,” Marshall said. “The real answer is all kids are ready for kindergarten. We have to take them where they are at and do our very best.”

According to Idaho Red News reporter Clark Corbin, Marshall was obviously trying to be positive and point out that educators need to teach and help all students, regardless of the reading skills they possess when they show up to school.

Then, during two days of informational meetings in November at the Statehouse, Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, asked state officials why she kept hearing news reports saying students were unprepared for kindergarten, and questioned whether the narrative “was just anecdotal.”

Well, teachers do take their students where they are and do their best, and the information in not at all anecdotal. The problem is that there are high poverty schools across the state where very low percentages of students enter school ready to read, and there are others with low percentages of poverty where many more kids start out ready. 

And many kids in those high poverty schools never catch up.

Let's take a look at what the data say about this phenomenon.

In order to assess preparation for reading, we use the % at Grade Level on the Fall Kindergarten Idaho Reading Indicator. You may be surprised at how much variance there is among preparedness levels across the state of Idaho.

Highest Percentage of Kindergartners "Ready to Read"

The charts below show some of the schools with the highest percentage of "ready to read" kindergartners, and the demographics of those schools. Data for some schools were not available, or were given within a range, because their kindergarten enrollments are very low.

These schools consistently have high percentages of students showing up for kindergarten "ready to read", as judged by the Fall kindergarten Idaho Reading Indicator. Note that these are not cohort data, so  student mobility is not considered. Also note that percentages are generally lower for the "new IRI" initiated in 2018.

To see an illustration of how mobility works in high poverty and low poverty schools, see this post from the Boise School District's Data Points blog, written in 2017. It's interesting, and a bit startling to see the mobility differences.

The red and green text columns are meant to show kindergarten percentage (for example, fall 2012), and Spring third grade percentage (for example, Spring 2016). So Riverside School, in Boise, had 91% prepared in Fall kindergarten and 91% prepared in Spring 3rd grade. The State of Idaho, by way of comparison, had 56% in Fall kindergarten and 73% 4 years later.

This slide shows the demographics for the schools in the first slide. Note that each of the schools has Free/Reduced Lunch percentages well below the Idaho total, and Limited English percentages below the state percentage, as well.

Lowest Percentage of Kindergartners "Ready to Read"

In the charts below, you'll see schools that have some of the lowest longitudinal percentages of students that are "ready to read" upon entering kindergarten. 

Note that while the schools in the "highest" category begin kindergarten with "ready to read percentages in the 70's, 80's, or 90's, these schools typically start out in the 20's and 30's, and, more recently with the new IRI, between 10% and 26% "ready to read".

These schools make tremendous progress with their kindergartners as they progress through the early grades. For example, just 31% of kindergartners at Horizon Elementary in Jerome  were "ready to read" in Fall, 2013. Four years later, 72% were at grade level at the end of 3rd grade. That's impressive, but note that none of the "lowest" schools get to the performance level of the "highest" schools noted above. 

The demographics of these schools are quite different than those in the "highest" category. All have far higher percentages of free/reduced lunch than the state, as well as very high percentages of English learners. 

Since the introduction of the new IRI in 2018, the percentage of students "ready to read" has been about 10% lower statewide in Idaho. So the number of schools with between 10% and 30% has increased substantially. Below is a chart showing those schools for the administration of the Fall, 2019 kindergarten IRI.

With very few exceptions, these schools have very high poverty rates and high Limited English populations. The average percent ready to read across these schools was 16% in Fall, 2019.

How Pre-k Could Help

There are 19 schools in the list above. As we noted, they average 16% "ready to read" when the students enter school for kindergarten. A high quality Pre-k program could change the future for many students in those schools.

How? Well,  think about this. Let's say that each of these schools implemented quality Pre-k programs for their 4-year olds. in Fall, 2019, there were 1300 kindergartners in those schools, and 210 of them were at grade level. 1090 were not.

If those 19 Pre-k programs were able to get the percentage of "ready to read" kindergartners to the state average of 42%, 546 of 1300 students would be ready. That's 346 more students than were ready in fall, 2019.

If 70% were "ready to read" after participating in Pre-k programs, then 910 of 1310 would be ready. That's 700 more than in fall, 2019.

This can be done. We can raise the level of readiness in our kindergartens, starting with the schools that need it the most. The benefits this would provide for our businesses, our communities, our families, and our schools would be substantial. It's time we got to work on providing these opportunities for reading readiness.

WHY CONSIDERING STUDENT MOBILITY IS IMPORTANT FOR THE IRI (AND EVERY OTHER ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURE)

Originally published in Data Points, Boise Schools blog, Monday, August 21, 2017

Written by Don Coberly

In 2002, the Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Plan law was modified in Senate Bill 1412 to include a provision that only students who were enrolled 90% of the schools day between fall and spring IRI testing were to be counted for purposes of goal attainment on the IRI. The change was made so that schools and teachers were not held accountable in a given year for kids who showed up a week before the test, for example. The new provision was in place until SB 1614 was put in place last year - the new law had no provision for considering mobility.

The State Department of Education recently provided data to school districts about student mobility, which has been very helpful. However,  the public site which has IRI data dating back to 2006 does not include any consideration of student mobility.

So why is this important? Let's take a look at the data for 2 Boise schools, using cohort IRI data.

The Assessment

First, it's important to understand the scoring of the IRI. The test is administered on an individual basis in fall and spring of a given year by trained administrators (often former teachers), and takes between 15 and 25 minutes for most students. The results are scored on a 3 point scale.  A score of "3" is considered "proficient", "2" is basic, and "1" is below basic. The IRI does not measure "above grade level" skill in reading.

The kindergarten assessment is meant to measure growth in letter naming and letter sound fluency. In first grade, letter - sound fluency is measured in the fall along with fluent reading on a basic passage. Beginning in the spring of first grade, each assessment measures reading fluency - fluent reading rate on increasingly complex passages.

Mobility Case Studies

For these studies, we looked at 2013 fall kindergarten and 2017 spring 3rd grade data, and analyzed the changes in student population and IRI performance.

Horizon Elementary

Horizon Elementary is a large elementary school on the Boise bench which has high mobility and about 66% free and reduced lunch. Horizon was built in 1992 to relieve overcrowding in Boise's West End.

In the fall of 2013, Horizon had 115 kindergartners, each of whom took the Idaho Reading Indicator. Of that total group, 50% scored at "grade level" ( a score of "3"). The statewide fall kindergarten "at grade level" percentage was 54.5%.

We wanted to know how many of those kindergartners were still around in the spring of 3rd grade, and how they did on the IRI.

In the fall of 2013, 115 kindergartners took the Idaho Reading Indicator at Horizon. Half of those students were ready to read, according to the IRI, 5% fewer than in the state as a whole. Of those students, 49 (43%) were still at Horizon in the spring of 3rd grade. Of those 49, 81% were at grade level on the spring 3rd grade IRI, 6% better than the state average. 66 of the original 115 (57%) were no longer enrolled at Horizon.

Of the 66 students who moved, 23 did so within the Boise District. 36 moved within the state of Idaho (16 to West Ada), and 7 moved out of state.

In the spring of 2017, there were 49 third graders who had moved in since kindergarten. 16 had moved from another Boise school, 22 came from within the state (14 from West Ada), and 11 came from outside the state of Idaho. One student arrived during kindergarten, 7 arrived during 1st grade, 14 during 2nd grade, and 27 during third grade.  67% of the "new" students scored at grade level on the IRI at the end of third grade.

Roosevelt Elementary

Roosevelt is an elementary school of about 300 students in northeast Boise just off of Warm Springs Avenue. Roosevelt had a free/reduced lunch percentage of 18% in May, 2017. The school was originally built in 1920 and received a complete renovation in 2010.

In fall, 2013, 40 kindergartners took the IRI at Roosevelt. 92% of those students scored at grade level on the assessment. In spring of 3rd grade, 27 of those students (68%) were still enrolled at Roosevelt. 96% of those remaining scored a "3" on the spring 3rd grade IRI.

13 students (32%) transferred after the kindergarten assessment. Of those students, 8 changed schools within the District, 2 within the state, and 3 moved to homeschooling or to a charter.

Twenty-one (21) students came to Roosevelt during or after kindergarten. Of those students, 7 came from within the District, 5 came from in-state (4 from West Ada), and 9 came from outside the state (4 from California).  Two came during kindergarten, 7 in first grade, 6 in second grade, and 3 in the third grade. 91% of these students scored at "grade level on the IRI in spring of 3rd grade.

The Point of All This

We live in a tremendously mobile society. Teachers are faced with the enormous task of dealing with constant mobility among their students. At Horizon, for example, a "cohort" of students may actually feature more than 50% mobility from grades k-3. Sp over half the students in kindergarten will transfer during that period of time, and will be replaced by other students moving into the school. Some students may attend 4 or 5 schools during that time.

Apart from the challenges of socialization for so many students, starting and stopping at a number of schools often affects achievement among those kids. But since we have no control over the movement of families and students, the least we can do is to consider the achievement of students who are non-mobile. At Horizon, for example, 81% of non-mobile students were at grade level in spring of 3rd grade - in kindergarten, the percentage was 50 - truly remarkable growth. For Roosevelt, the percentage of non-mobile students who were at grade level at the end of 3rd grade was 96% - up four percent from kindergarten.

The fact that consideration of mobility is no longer a part of the IRI legislation is truly unfortunate. The old law required that it be considered each year. It's really not fair to hold teachers and schools accountable for the achievement of students who moved in just before the test, whether they achieved at grade level or below. If they continue in the school, then it makes sense - this kind of consideration of mobility is part of the federal testing requirement for ESSA - it should be for state assessments, as well.