The Little Rock School District's 2021 ACT Aspire results were lower than the district's 2019 results and lower than the statewide results, which also fell between 2019 and 2021.
The district's School Board took a hard look at the recent test results late last week and had questions about them.
The percentages of Little Rock students scoring at the desired "ready" or "exceeding ready" levels on the state-required exams dropped in every subject and in every grade, three through 10, in the spring of 2021 as compared with the 2019 results.
In third grade reading, 21.6% of the pupils in the capital city district scored at ready or better levels on the exam, down from 31% in 2019. That was the year before the global coronavirus pandemic resulted in closing campuses to on-site instruction for a quarter of the school year. That quarter was followed by the 2020-21 year in which thousands of students statewide and in Little Rock relied on relatively novel remote, online instruction.
On the math portion of the Aspire exams, only 15% of Little Rock 10th-graders, 18.5% of ninth-graders and 21.4% of eighth-grade test-takers achieved at the ready or better levels. The math results were typically 10 or more percentage points below the 2019 math results.
Only in fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade English did more than 50% of Little Rock test-takers achieve at ready or exceeding ready levels. Still, those results were below the 2019 results.
Danyell Cummings, district director of testing and evaluation, noted for the board that the drop in Little Rock results were of similar size to the declines in the statewide results.
"Why do we have so many students not learning?" School Board member Jeff Wood asked at one point in the meeting. "We get the data and reports every year. The results don't change," he said.
Randy Rutherford, the district's executive director of secondary education, urged patience, saying the district isn't that far along in its switch to literacy instruction that is based on the scientific research into how students learn to read, which includes a heavy reliance on phonics. The district has also just adopted a new math curriculum and is refining its use of professional learning communities or teacher collaborations to improve teaching and learning.
It takes three to five years to see results, Rutherford said .
"You'll see a gradual rise," he predicted, adding that the past school year with the pandemic "was a disaster" statewide.
Wood said the third-grade results were particularly troubling as those pupils should have benefited from newer reading programs and other strategies.
Shana Loring, the district's new executive director of curriculum and instruction, pointed out that third grade is the first year in which pupils take the online Aspire exams, and that the third-graders in the 2020-21 school year had very disrupted second- and third-grade foundational years because of the pandemic.
Loring also said there is a significant jump in the complexity of text or written material between second and third grades. If a third-grader is struggling to "decode" words, he is going to struggle with comprehending what he is reading.
The School Board scrutiny of the Aspire results, which fall into four categories of "needs improvement," "close," "ready" and "exceeding ready," comes at a time when the district is classified as in Level 4/directed support in the state's five-level school district accountability system.
The Arkansas Board of Education concluded in July that the 21,000-student district had complied with criteria necessary to exit from Level 5/intensive support and so moved the district to Level 4.
That Level 5 exit criteria centered on the district using professional learning communities, using a teacher and administrator evaluation system to improve student achievement and using a literacy program based on reading science with support for students with characteristics of dyslexia. It also called for the district to have a state-approved master facilities plan and a three-year budget plan that does not require dipping into reserves to meet routine expenses.
As a Level 4 system, the district must do quarterly reporting to the state Education Board and have a written district plan to support schools that includes monitoring progress in regard to the previous exit criteria, including student achievement and moving students out of the lower "needs improvement" level on the Aspire exams.
The School Board voted 8-1 late Thursday in support of the district's support plan that Superintendent Mike Poore said is an evolving structure "for doing the right work" that will "raise the boat for all kids."
Board member Evelyn Callaway voted "no" on the Level 4 plan. She had questioned how district educators will raise student achievement when some students will be attending school in person this school year while others are enrolled in a digital learning academy and still others may be taught by an outsourced education company.
Board President Vicki Hatter questioned district leaders about ways to address learning loss that occurred because of pandemic disruptions, and she asked if there are specific strategies for helping Black and Hispanic students and very poor students.
Top-level staff members described for the board the different steps that are underway to improve student achievement. Those efforts include a greatly expanded summer school initiative this year. There will be school-by-school analyses of student test data to identify student needs and the development of school improvement plans to respond to the needs. Principals will monitor teacher instruction in part by doing regular classroom visits and observations with feedback provided to the teachers.
Typically, the state uses the Aspire results and other information to calculate an A-to-F letter grade for each school in the state. The calculation of a letter grade has been waived for the 2020-21 school year by state law. But Cummings said a numerical score will be calculated for each school based on the Aspire results and factors such as high school graduation rates and whether a minimum of 95% of eligible students took the Aspire tests. That numerical score is required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
Cummings said a majority of the elementary schools met the 95% test rates, as did a couple of the middle schools.