Hopkins Science Scores Fall

Editor's note: Golden Valley Patch will feature a story about Robbinsdale Public Schools' scores on Monday.

Nearly half of Hopkins students tested in science last spring failed to meet state standards, according to data the Minnesota Department of Education made public Friday morning.

While state performance tended to be flat over 2010, Hopkins saw drops in the percentage of students who were proficient. In both fifth grade and eighth grade, more students failed to demonstrate the required skills than the year before—although the district’s eighth graders still beat the state average by about five percentage points.

Hopkins High School offered a bright contrast to other categories. Students there performed well above their peers across the state and performed better than they did last year.

But the trend was more dismal overall. Hopkins North Junior High fell behind the state average by about two percentage points, and fifth graders across the district lagged behind others in the state—with half of the district’s elementary schools below the state average.

L.H. Tanglen, the worst-performing school, had nearly three out of four students fail the test.

(Details on each school’s performance are available here.)

Diane Schimelpfenig—the district’s director of teaching, learning, and assessment—said it’s too early to know a reason for the falling scores because staff haven’t yet had a chance to dig deep into the data.

The state reported a continuing gap between white students and students of color and students in poverty. But L.H. Tanglen, for one, doesn’t particularly stand out as a school with socio-economic challenges, Schimelpfenig said. The district will be more prepared to provide an explanation once they’ve had a chance to look at the data closer.

“Absolutely we’re going to be reviewing the results and looking at the results,” she promised.

Boosting scores isn’t so easy, though. Unlike the math and reading tests, the science test results don’t include a breakdown of which concepts students struggled with, she said. Providing only an overall test score makes it harder for teachers to know which areas to emphasize.

A Minnesota Department of Education news release also noted that students may have been caught in the transition to new academic standards. This year’s test was based on the 2003 standards. The 2012 test will be the first based on the 2009 standards.

Those caveats won’t make it any easier to sell Hopkins to parents considering open enrollment—a crucial population because Hopkins’ declining enrollment would be even more pronounced if the district weren’t drawing several hundred students from outside its district boundaries.

But Schimelpfenig cautioned against writing off any school based on the science test alone. Parents should talk with teachers, other parents and the principal before deciding where to send their kids.

“In my life as a former elementary teacher and a former elementary parent, I would not look at enrolling in any school (based) on any one test,” she said. “I wouldn’t draw any conclusions at this point.”

Going forward, schools that performed well will continue to share their best practices throughout the district, she said.

State results

Statewide scores were also mediocre. In the news release, Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said the scores emphasize the need for science and math teacher academies and for so-called “STEM initiatives”—or science, technology, engineering and math.

“The 2011 Science MCA-II results, like the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores and others we’ve seen over the past few months, reinforce our need to approach science and math education with a sense of urgency,” the news release quoted Cassellius. “While we see some slight gains among some groups of students, they are not enough to ensure all of our kids will be able to compete in a global economy.”

Nearly 180,000 students in fifth grade, eighth grade and high school took the tests in the spring spring. Fifth grade performance stayed flat, and eighth grade performance dropped more than three percentage points.

High School proficiency climbed two percentage points—reflecting a consistent upward trend since 2008, when it was 11 points lower.

Science results do not impact the adequate yearly progress requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act.