‘Outstanding’ once again
State rates all Lake Oswego schools at top of report card
For the third year in a row, the Lake Oswego School District has topped state ratings with an “outstanding” on the state report card for the entire district.
“We’re very, very pleased and I’d say appreciative because our students work really hard, and our teachers do a great job, and our parents are tremendously supportive and really care about their kids,” said Superintendent Bill Korach. “We have really good conditions here, and we work really hard to make the most of the conditions we have.”
In the last five years, the district has only missed the top rating once, and it was because one school was two students shy of the participation standard for the statewide assessment, he added.
“Those results for a school district of any size are just phenomenal,” said Korach.
Riverdale schools also got top ratings, putting that district in Dunthorpe at the top percentage of schools throughout the state.
This is the 11th year the Oregon Department of Education has released a state report card. This is the final of three major reports released on public schools each fall; the other two are the state tests in reading, writing, mathematics, and science and the federal Adequate Yearly Progress report required under No Child Left Behind. Of the three reports, the state intends for the school report card to be the most complete look at how a school is doing.
The school report cards includes the AYP results, student test performance, school improvement, attendance, dropout rates, class size, SAT scores, expulsions due to weapons and teacher education and experience. Schools receive separate ratings for student performance, improvement, student behavior, and school characteristics.
A formula is applied to these separate ratings to designate an overall rating.
Lake Oswego’s school report card ratings are noteworthy in light of statewide results — all of the district’s 13 schools were included in the 34 percent of schools statewide who received the top rating. Statewide about 61 percent of schools were rated “satisfactory” and five percent were rated “in need of improvement.”
This year the state changed the way it rates schools — scaling down from a five-category system to three categories, which will more closely align Oregon’s system to the federal No Child Left Behind ratings. Last year the scale included exceptional, strong, satisfactory, low and unacceptable ratings. This year, they are outstanding, satisfactory and needs improvement.
In the past, schools were receiving “strong” or “exceptional” ratings on the state report card, but not meeting the federal AYP requirments. This new rating system is meant to amend that discrepancy.
Some districts improved the number of schools that received top rating: 12 of 14 West Linn-Wilsonville schools, eight of 17 Tigard-Tualatin schools and 28 of 53 Beaverton schools received “outstanding” ratings. In Portland Public Schools, 45 percent of its 91 schools received an “outstanding” rating.
Additionally, this year’s ratings reflect the state’s new growth model which measures student learning over time. Under the growth model, student who perform below grade level are given targets for improving performance within three years. Schools will then be evaluated on whether or not the students hit their targets in the new model.
In Lake Oswego, a certain amount of improvement can actually be a challenging target to hit, said Korach. In the past, the state had graded for improvement, as well, but had not taken into account districts who have less room for improvement.
“We had a great issue with that,” said Korach. “When you get to a certain level, it’s really hard to keep improving or have large amounts of improvement.”
Korach recalls a situation from more than 10 years ago when 92 percent of students at Lakeridge met the state’s benchmarks — a noteworthy accomplishment. But the school was down from 97 percent. As a result, the school received the same rating as a school in the Portland area that went from 35 percent meeting to 45 percent meeting.
This time, Korach thinks that state’s new system will amend that problem.
School and district report cards will be available on the Oregon Department of Education’s Web site today at: http://www.ode.state.or.us/data/reportcard/reports.aspx .