The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Dexter gets high marks
MEAP scores better than state averages
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: April 17, 2008
Students in the Dexter Community School district have a lot to be proud of this month now that the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) exam results are in.
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Dexter students were at the head of the class in Washtenaw County for the 2007 results in the state's main education measuring tool across nine grade categories.
The tests were given last fall to students in grades 3 through 9 in different subject areas.
Reading, writing, English language arts and math were tested in grades 3 through 8.
Science was added to the tests in grades 5 and 8; and social studies was included on the sixth-grade tests.
Ninth-graders were tested in social studies only.
The district placed first in third-grade reading with 95.1 percent, fourth-grade math with 97.7 percent, fourth-grade reading with 96.2 percent, fifth-grade reading with 94 percent, fifth-grade science with 95.3 percent, sixth-grade social studies with 91.2 percent, seventh-grade writing with 89 percent, eighth-grade writing with 87 percent, and eighth-grade science with 95.4 percent.
In addition to leading in nine of 22 grade categories - tied with Saline who also led nine MEAP categories -Dexter had 14 scores above 90 percent.
Curriculum Director Sara Dansky said the district is already taking steps to address Dexter students' one weakness - writing.
"Our writing scores in the lower grades in third, fourth and fifth are still a little lower than we would like," Dansky said.
She also said that the district will be concentrating "professional development" in that area to address the scores, which were 67.9 percent for the district's third-graders, 59.9 percent for fourth-graders and 69 percent for fifth-graders.
Dansky and fellow curriculum consultant Linda Kuzon will be heading up that initiative.
"We have taken care and time with literacy instruction, but the focus has been more on reading," Dansky said. "It's not that we were neglecting writing, but we were really focusing on reading, but now we have to put that same kind of emphasis on writing."
According to Danksy, the district has already had its eye on the broader issue of literacy throughout the district, but with more of a focus on reading.
"We're trying to be responsive to the areas that we see," she said. "When you look across the board, (writing) seems to be kind of a weakness for us."
Dansky pointed out that the scores in those grade levels for writing are low state- and countywide, with Ann Arbor leading the pack in grades 3-5 writing with 75.5 percent, 61.6 percent and 73.9 percent respectively.
"Overall the state scores are low in writing ... lower than they are in reading," Dansky said. "It looks like in Ann Arbor they've got 75 percent of their kids having achieved their writing standard, and I'm thinking we're not that much below that."
Reading scores have been steadily improving by one or two percentage points since 2005, according to the district's MEAP results report, which was released earlier this week and discussed Monday at the Board of Education meeting.
The only exceptions are third-grade reading, which is down 1 percent from 2005, and eighth-grade reading down 5 percent from 2005 and one percentage point from 2006.
Third-grade writing is down two points from 2005, with fourth-graders being up by two points from 2005 after a dip to 51 percent in 2006.
Fifth-grade writing is up six percent from 63 percent in 2005, but down from a high of 75 percent in 2006.
Sixth-grade writing is down two points from a high of 88 percent, which remained the same between 2005 and 2006.
Seventh- and eighth-grade scores saw steady increases to 89 and 87 percent respectively.
Mathematics also increased steadily, except for fifth-graders, who dipped to 86 percent, down from a high of 89 in 2006, but better than the 84 earned in 2005.
Third, fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades are up from 2005 by 3, 4, 3, 10 and 4 percentage points respectively.
"At the elementary level we are continuing to work on math," Dansky said. "I think with writing we sort of have a clear message there, but it's a little bit sketchier in math. It goes up and down a little bit, so it's hard to say definitively (where the trend is going)."
Science scores are up, with fifth-graders jumping from 91 percent in 2005 to 95 in 2007, which was also the score last year.
Eighth-graders are up a couple of points over 2005 with 95 percent this year - a drastic 7 percent improvement from 2006.
Sixth-grade social studies scores have declined further to 91 percent, from 94 in 2005 and 93 in 2006. Ninth-grade levels fell to 90 percent from 93 in 2005 and 92 in 2006.
Dansky says that despite Dexter's intent to remain competitive with other districts across the county, the district's children can hold their heads high.
"I would at least like for us to be able to achieve on par with our cohorts in the county," she said. "That does help to guide us in the work that we need to do. We really do compare ourselves to the other schools in Washtenaw County, especially in our similar demographic, so we look to Saline, Chelsea, and Ann Arbor."
She wanted to remind parents paying attention to these figures as a barometer of the quality of education that children are receiving that MEAP scores are just "a snapshot in time."
"There's so much more that goes into whether or not your students are really having a great educational experience," she said. "They will need to take college entrance exams, so they need to get proficient at taking tests.
"(But) what we really want is to make sure that we have students really learning and loving to learn."
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