High School Test Scores

[Bob Wells]

There is also the Collegiate High School at NWF State College. I had 2 out of 3 go there. They have the opportunity to graduate with an Associate Degree and High School Diploma. The worse part is the drive. At the time to my kids got in, a lottery system was used. Great school.

 

[Jdarg]

Robert hit the nail on the head- but it is a multihead nail!

Yes, parent involvement is key, but here it needs to go beyond what many of us from larger communities are used to doing in our kids' schools. We are a rural community, and our educational system (public and private) doesn't have the population or resources to make it really comparable to larger communities, who have lots of kids, lots of parents, larger coffers, more school choice, and more community resources (parks, sports facilities, access to the arts, etc). There are a handful of schools, and we have to find a way to make one of them work for our kids- there is no smorgasbord here.

So - as a parent, you will have to dig in a little more here. You can't just send your kid to school and expect everything to just work out without parental involvement. Even in the best schools, once they get to high school, parents need to be on top of everything from 9th grade on- class schedule, testing, sports and extracurricular, etc., because every decision at this point is leading up to what happens after high school.

SGB is correct when she talks about the expectation of parents in Walton County that has shifted to a college prep expectation. As parents, we realize that that expectation needs to be clear to students from the beginning- middle school preferably, but at the very least, from the minute they walk through the front door of the high school as a freshman. Waiting until junior and senior years to start thinking about college is ridiculous. Unfortunately, (and I am only speaking for SWHS), the guidance department does not have enough time or people to make this expectation a priority all 4 years, because they are overworked as it is keeping up with 500+ kids. Barbara Cole, the guidance counselor, and her staff, are truly amazing, but because of lack of funds in the budget, they won't get the extra help they need and deserve.

Fortunately, SWHS has been very receptive to a group of hardworking parents who saw the importance of shifting the goal of high school success from just getting a high school diploma to going to college. To accomplish our goal, college preparation is going to have to be in front of these kids starting in 9th grade. This spring, we had to focus on meeting with juniors to make sure they were aware of college board test dates and other deadlines pertaining to their futures- yes, they had been to the meetings, but until you sit down with a kid and make eye contact and conversation with them, many times a class meeting will be an "in one ear out the other" situation. We found the one-on-ones to be helpful, and caught a few kids who might have slipped through the cracks and missed some opportunities.

SWHS does not have a college planning department like other high schools do, so we are going to invent one in some shape or form! Our guidance counselor met a college planning counselor from Venice (FL) High School, and she brought us an idea for SWHS that hopefully will work out to be a really great idea for our guidance department. Venice High School has a college counseling department funded by Rotary. It started out as a part time position, now it is full time. The counselor works on nothing but college planning- student schedules, testing, applying to schools, and finding financial aid, scholarships, and grants. In the first couple of years, the dollar amount awarded to Venice students at least doubled. The local community saw the importance of educating their local kids, and stepped up with the salary for this position. We are talking about how to make this work at SWHS.

Just a thought (before I go)- if the high school had a college prep focus instead of an FCAT focus, would the FCAT scores go up??? Hmmmm.....

There is so much more to say about this- and my fingers are tired! Maybe SGB or Grayton Girl will chime in some more.

 

[mdd88jd]

I thought I should chime in on this discussion a little bit. I don't necessarily disagree with any of the posters here. We have been raising our expectations for students for the past 12 years. The FCAT tests three subjects in high schools. We do pretty well on the reading and math portions (when compared to other counties in the State).

However, WCTA has pointed out the problem we are having and frankly, the whole State is having. Ever since the State's educational accountability program was put in place (FCAT, school grades, etc.) the State's ACT and SAT scores have flattened. Walton County's score have increased slightly, but, not at a rate consistent with our changing demographics. Part of the problem with the State's curriculum and with the accountability system for high schools is that it is too narrowly focused.

Hopefully, with Senator Gaetz's new high school grading system bill which passed last year, that will begin to change.

As for SWHS, the poster is correct. If the parent is involved, pays attention to the classes your child takes and insists on quality instruction, you are going to get it. I suspect that is true for almost all high schools though. Although we have no real statistical evidence, we have some evidence that a large majority of our students who go directly to universities do quite well. Sadly, our remediation rate for the local community colleges is too high.

I copied the original post to Marsha Pugh, our district administrator in charge of curriculum and she responded as follows:

I think it would be important to know if this family is moving from within Florida or from out-of-state. Each state assessment is very different and it may not be reasonable to compare one to another. Every state had to define ?proficiency? when designing assessments. Florida chose a level 3 as the indicator of proficiency which is a very high expectation. The person who posted this probably would think this is an ?excuse? but it is not possible to compare all state assessments equally.

The district is strongly pushing high schools to train all content teachers in Advanced Placement. Even if we don?t have capacity to offer AP in all subject areas, the training is designed to make teaching more rigorous and challenging for students. We are also expecting schools to train all content teachers in Content Area Reading ? Professional Development (CAR-PD). Some schools are showing reluctance to move in this direction. However, the intent is not to make content teachers reading teachers, but to empower them with knowledge to teach more effectively within their content area. The FCAT assesses a student?s reading performance using informational text. Science, social studies and even mathematics teachers must know how to effectively teach content vocabulary and guide students to read informational text with understanding. We provided several CAR-PD training sessions this summer. Most of the participants at the secondary level were from middle schools. South Walton had only two teachers who chose to participate. Emerald Coast Middle had seven, representing a large portion of their faculty.

Schools had also had opportunity this summer (training for school teams took place this week, Monday ? Wednesday) to be a part of a program out of the University of South Florida, School-Wide Positive Behavior Support. All of our elementary and middle schools will be participating (previously only WDE and FES were involved). Unfortunately, none of our high schools were able to participate. Some think they don?t need it. I disagree. We?re going to encourage them to participate in the future. The program helps them evaluate behavior and attendance information to identify schoolwide areas of concern and develop a schoolwide plan to improve. I think that this process will help any school to improve by changing school culture to foster improvement.

In summary, I think the most important thing we are doing and must continue to do, is provide high quality professional development as described above.

So, I think we have the train moving in the right direction. Thanks for the posts and comments. We are working hard to improve education in Walton County.

 

[Jdarg]

Hi Mark! We must have hit the submit button at the same time. As always, thanks for taking to he time to communicate info to us.

 

[mdd88jd]

Just a thought (before I go)- if the high school had a college prep focus instead of

"Just a thought (before I go)- if the high school had a college prep focus instead of an FCAT focus, would the FCAT scores go up??? Hmmmm....."

In my opinion the FCAT scores would not go up. The FCAT tests Reading, Writing, Math and some science. You are right, we are focused on those four subjects and we probably do not spend enough time in literature, higher math, history, arts, geography, non-FCAT science, etc. Thus, if you spread you resources to the other subjects, you probably get diluted resources spent on the FCAT. The better students would do okay on the FCAT, but, the lower performing students would be underserved. So, I think what would happen is that your FCAT scores would go down, while, the rigor of your overall curriculum would go up. Kind of ironic, huh....

That's why I have always argued that high schools should be graded by requiring every student to take either the SAT and ACT and measure the school's performance by the average score and how much those scores improve..... Just one opinion....

 

[melscuba]

Thank you everyone for your replies and getting others involved in this discussion. To answer a question in one of the posts, yes, we are moving from out of state. I considered whether the FCAT measured on a different scale of expectations, as I understand each state develops its own standards. In the scheme of things, we are moving from Georgia which consistently ranks in the mid to low 40's in education as compared to the rest of the U.S.. Florida, on the other hand, ranked 21st this last year. We are moving from a suburb of Atlanta however, and our high school is ranked in the top 100 high schools in the nation. Another number that I found disturbing was that only 66 out of 379 SAT eligible students even opted to take the exam. I would like to consider that the majority of students chose to take the ACT??? I worked in a North Carolina high school for 6 years and watched it transition from a rural school (the children were primarily from farmers who needed the kids to help in the fields more than graduate high school) to a school with college preparatory focus. I get the impression that SWHS may be going through this transition?? I get the impression from other posts that the high school doesn't seem to feel "pressed" to make any changes which concerns me.

BTW, our school has 33% on free and reduced lunch as well as the same percentage who do not speak English as their first language(the majority of that number come in not speaking any English at all). I say that because the test score numbers can still be reached.

Please keep the information coming as well as opinions. I want to hear of change. When we finally see our dream of 30-A living come true, I want to feel confident that we aren't sacrificing our children's education, but on the contrary, enhancing it.

 

[mdd88jd]

Thanks for the questions. To answer one, I believe most of our kids who are planning to go to college take the ACT versus the SAT. Most colleges in the south only require the ACT. I say "believe" because I have not checked the numbers, but, that is my recollection.

 

[WCTA]

Thanks for the questions. To answer one, I believe most of our kids who are planning to go to college take the ACT versus the SAT. Most colleges in the south only require the ACT. I say "believe" because I have not checked the numbers, but, that is my recollection.

Florida ACT scores fall, state ranks 48th nationally ...

Florida's average composite score on the ACT college entrance test dropped 0.4 point to 19.9 this year to rank 48th nationally, according to results released early Wednesday.

FROM THE FLA DOE WEBSITE

2008 Results

Walton CO
Seniors 441
# Taking ACT 266 - % taking - 60.3%

Average Scores
English -19.2
Math - 19.4
Reading - 20.7
Science - 19.3
Composite - 19.8


Okaloosa Composite = 22.1
Bay Composite = 20.8
Santa Rosa =21.4
Washington = 19.9
Wakula = 21.0

 

[SGB]

Another number that I found disturbing was that only 66 out of 379 SAT eligible students even opted to take the exam. I would like to consider that the majority of students chose to take the ACT??? I worked in a North Carolina high school for 6 years and watched it transition from a rural school (the children were primarily from farmers who needed the kids to help in the fields more than graduate high school) to a school with college preparatory focus. I get the impression that SWHS may be going through this transition?? I get the impression from other posts that the high school doesn't seem to feel "pressed" to make any changes which concerns me.

Yes, Walton County is going through a similar transition. SWHS is relatively new, so it's kind of going through a "growing up" transition too. Its first year it had many students that other schools didn't want, so that was a tough year or two. Since then we've had a new principal that put a stop to that. So now most of the kids that go there are from South Walton and grew up together. For the most part it's a good group of kids and they have relatively few behavior issues. As the school has evolved, they've been able to add AP classes and focus more on the education of the kids. Sports is big here too so that gets attention too.

I would have hoped that the test scores would start to improve, but so far, they haven't really. I think it's just a matter of time. Now that we're back to a traditional schedule, and more parents are pushing for better academics, I think we'll eventually start to see test score improvement.

Improving the FCAT scores needs to include and start with the elementary and middle schools too. The middle schools are really starting to take off here. Seaside has always had good scores and now Emerald Coast (also relatively new) is doing really well too. The students that are just now coming into the high school are the ones that have had an improved education at Emerald Coast and Seaside. Perhaps we'll see a rise in high school FCAT scores as these kids go to the high school.

Strictly based on the students that I know, most seem to take both tests. Unfortunately many of them wait until 12th grade to take the tests. I haven't evaluated the SAT test taker numbers lately, but perhaps they include the lower classmen in the count? Many of our students end up going to NWFSC after they graduate and it's not a requirement that they take the SAT or ACT to get in. It is a requirement that they take it if they want Bright Futures money. There's another big perk that Florida gives their kids, Bright Futures scholarships. Look that up and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

BTW - the dual enrollment, collegiate high school and virtual schools are all free. Students can earn a lot of free college credit before they even graduate from HS.

As parents we all have to continue to push for better classes and higher expectations. We have to impress this upon the school administration and the school board of the county. As the expectations of the schools changes I would hope that the school board composition and expectations will change too. We've got some good people on the board, but I think the county is due for some changes. We'll see improvement as things evolve.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Take a look at the SAT Scores For Walton County

Students Who Took The SAT 07-08: 66 /Number of graduates 2008: 379
Average SAT score 2007-08: 1459

RANGES OF SCORES FOR 2008 FRESHMEN

Duke

• Critical Reading: 690 - 770
• Mathematics: 690 - 790
• Writing: 680 - 780
• TOTAL SAT -2060 to 2340

Harvard

• Critical Reading: 690 - 800
• Mathematics: 700 - 790
• Writing: 690 - 780
• TOTAL SAT - 2080 - 2370

MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Critical Reading: 660 - 760
• Mathematics: 720 - 800
• Writing: 660 - 750
• TOTAL SAT - 2040 - 2310

Stanford

• Critical Reading: 660 - 760
• Mathematics: 680 - 780
• Writing: 670 - 770
• TOTAL SAT - 2010 - 2310

UCLA

• Critical Reading: 570 - 680
• Mathematics: 610 - 720
• Writing: 580 - 690
• TOTAL SAT - 1760 - 2090

Since we are looking at the average test scores for SAT in Walton County, why are you showing us top-ranked college entrance requirements? Shouldn't we be looking at scores of acceptance for schools such as the ones a Walton County student might attend, like FSU, UF, UCF, UofM, etc? I'd bet that less than one percent of people who take the SAT go to all of those schools you listed, so if you want to use them as a reference grade, you should probably take only the highest SAT score for all of Walton County to see if they would be accepted on score alone. Just my $.03