Average achievement rates on the 2014 Arkansas Augmented Benchmark exams -- a 15-year-old testing program administered for the last time in the spring -- declined in every tested grade in math and in all but two grades in literacy.

A state official suggested that inclement weather that shut down some schools for weeks and the transition from one set of standards to another could be among the factors that contributed to student performance on the tests.

The test results have a big impact on school districts, schools and students across Arkansas.

The state uses annual Benchmark results in math and literacy to identify schools as either "achieving" or "needs to improve," depending on whether the schools meet their state-set achievement goals that are ratcheted up every year. The smaller the percentage of pupils who score at their grade level, or at proficient level or better, the bigger the annual achievement goal for the school.

Schools and districts in which less than 50 percent of the students over a three-year period score at proficient or better on the state exams can be identified by the state as being in academic distress. That label puts the school or district at risk of being taken over by the state.

Benchmark results are also used yearly by schools to identify pupils who score at basic and below-basic levels and provide remediation to them.

Little Rock School District officials released the preliminary state data in a report Thursday to the Little Rock School Board. The Little Rock district's test results showed achievement-rate declines in most grades when compared to the 2013 results. Also, Little Rock district students, on average, scored below the state averages.

New standards

Arkansas Department of Education leaders said earlier Thursday that they expect to comment more fully in the coming days and weeks on this year's Benchmark tests in third-through-eighth-grade math and literacy and later on the End of Course exams in Algebra I and geometry. Schools have already received the Benchmark results and are starting to get the End of Course results.

The results are for the final administration of the test, and they come in the third and final year of the public schools' transition to the new Common Core State Standards, which are the skills and knowledge that most of the 50 states have adopted as being what students should learn.

State and school district leaders have for the past couple of years said there is a disconnect between instruction that is based on the new Common Core State Standards and the Benchmark and End of Course tests that are based on Arkansas' old education standards. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam will replace the Arkansas Benchmark and End of Course exams in the 2014-15 school year. The new, online exams will be based on the new standards.

"When you are going through a transition, you have some unique things that go on," Melody Morgan, director of student assessment for the state Education Department, said Thursday.

Curricula and weather could be factors in the results.

"Data that is aggregated at the state level can't possibly explain every individual thing that is going on in a district that is in its final year of implementing new standards," Morgan said.

There are differences in curricula used by the districts, she said. "That's a big thing we don't control. Each district could be doing it differently."

Winter storms closed some school districts for 20 or more days before the test dates.

"We missed a lot of school this year due to weather," she said. "If we value instructional time, that is bound to have had an impact. I don't have proof of that, but we had a very unique winter. "

More than 210,000 public school pupils in grades three through eight took the Benchmark exams in math and literacy in the spring -- about 35,000 pupils per grade.

The preliminary state results showed declines of 1 to 6 percentage points in math. The fourth-grade results, for example, fell from 82 percent of pupils achieving at proficient levels or better in 2013 to 76 percent proficient this past spring on the math test.

Overall, the math results ranged from 63 percent proficient or better in eighth grade to 85 percent proficient or better in third grade.

In literacy, the state's preliminary results ranged from 69 percent proficient in sixth grade to 84 percent proficient or better in fourth grade. The percentages fell by 1 to 4 percentage points in grades three through six. In seventh and eighth grades, however, the state results plateaued, holding at 77 percent in both 2013 and 2014.

The final state results will be announced later in the summer.

Little Rock results

The Little Rock district's 2014 achievement rates, which did improve in fifth- and sixth-grade math when compared with 2013 results, were all below the state averages.

Little Rock's 2014 math results ranged from 46 percent proficient or better in eighth grade to 74 percent in the third grade.

The fourth grade showed the largest decline, 7 percentage points, from 73 percent proficient in 2013 to 66 percent this spring. But the fifth and sixth grades each showed gains of 5 percentage points. Fifth grade went from 54 percent proficient to 59 percent, while sixth grade went from 50 percent to 55 percent proficient over two years.

In literacy, the Little Rock results ranged from 50 percent proficient or better at the sixth grade to 75 percent at the fourth grade. The scores dropped by by 1 to 6 percentage points, with the largest drop at the third grade.

The Little Rock School Board, which oversees a district with six regular schools and two alternative schools identified as being in academic distress, talked late into the night Thursday about the state exam results and the schools in academic distress.

Superintendent Dexter Suggs told the board that despite the lateness of the hour, the information on testing is critical and can't be rushed.

"This is information that makes or breaks our school district," Suggs said.

He told the board that the district must individualize the services it provides to the six schools in academic distress but at the same time provide consistent training to principals and teachers districtwide.

"We must all speak the same language," about improvement efforts, he said.

Suggs also said he has plans to hire a chief academic officer, a new position.

The schools now in academic distress and not projected to be removed on the basis of the latest test results are: J.A. Fair, McClellan and Hall high schools; Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools; and Baseline Elementary. All those campuses have predominantly black student enrollments.

The testing also highlighted a racial achievement gap. For example, 82 percent of white students in the sixth grade scored as proficient, compared with 47 percent of black students.

Board member Tara Shephard, who described herself as an advocate for all students, said the district needs to aggressively and strategically act to raise the achievement levels of black students.

"This is pathetic. The black students in the Little Rock School District are being left behind," Shephard said. She added later, "We have a budget of $330 million. We are not receiving a return on our investment."

She questioned what the city's future workforce will be like without better student achievement.

Board member Norma Johnson questioned whether other schools in the 48-campus district have greater resources.

Dennis Glasgow, assistant superintendent for accountability, said that is not necessarily the case, as several of the schools in academic distress are recipients in recent years of as much as $6 million each in federal School Improvement Grant funds.

"We know what is wrong in these schools, " Glasgow said. "Student engagement is not very high. Rigor is not very high. Discipline, rituals and routines are not very high."

He said Pearson Achievement Services, which already provides math, literacy and leadership consulting services to the district's lowest-achieving schools is going to provide expert trainers to help principals improve their ability to be instructional leaders for the teachers in their buildings.

A section on 06/27/2014