A Press Release from Visalia Unified School District
The California State Department of Education released Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) information reflecting performance in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics during the 2018-2019 annual administration. This is the fifth year of the computer-based SBAC administration, and it reflects the closest performance comparison between Visalia Unified students with all students in the state of California in the area of English language arts (ELA) as VUSD students approach 50% meeting standard.
Visalia Unified students experienced a 2.29% improvement (to 49.89%) from the previous year, well exceeding California’s 0.99% improvement to 50.87% of students meeting standard. Our district students’ rate of improvement was nearly mirrored by the county’s improvement of 2.09% to 42.84%. Visalia Unified students experienced the largest improvement in the area of mathematics since the 2015-2016 administration with a 2.15% improvement to 33% of students meeting standard. Although the overall performance of the district lags behind the state, the improvement exceeded the state (1.08% to 39.73%), and the county (1.85% to 29.28%) during this past year’s administration.
Performance in English language arts of students in Visalia Unified has been very similar to the performance of all students in the state of California for each of the five years of administration, with Visalia Unified students improving 7.89% since the test’s inception, compared to the state’s 6.87% improvement over the same time period. Mathematics performance for the district remains below the state’s performance and improved 4% since the first administration compared to the state’s 6.73% improvement.
Our efforts in the district will remain steadfast on improving our practice of enhancing student learning through continuing to reflect and refine our instructional practices.We will continue to reflect on state test performance within the context of the overall effort to support the needs of all students, and thereby make necessary adjustments in our efforts as we continue to build our knowledge to improve.
To view Superintendent Thurmond’s news release, visit the California Department of Education website at https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr19/yr19rel68.asp.
It is quite sad to think we should be happy with approximately 50% of students meeting standards in any subject. What happened to 75% or 100%? Something is going wrong along the way.