Charles City students lag behind state average in latest proficiency tests

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Charles City Superintendent of Schools Mike Fisher acknowledged that when it comes to standardized testing, the school district has some work to do.

Results of the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) determined Charles City students, at all grade levels, scored below the state average.

“We acknowledge there’s a gap, and we’re working on it,” said Fisher. “We have room to grow there, and we’re excited about the challenge.”

This is the first year students across Iowa have taken the ISASP, which has replaced the Iowa Assessments as the accountability tests for all students in the state.

The test was developed by Iowa Testing Programs at the University of Iowa and tests students based on English-language arts, math and science. The tests were taken in the spring of 2019.

ISASP’s English and math tests were administered in every grade starting with third graders and ending with juniors in high school, while science was tested for fifth graders, eighth graders and high school sophomores.

Unlike previous statewide education assessments, the ISASP was not timed.

Fisher and Communications Director Justin DeVore discussed the results of the ISASP with the Press earlier this week.

“Obviously we lag behind the rest of the state. We know we have work to do, we know we have gaps to close,” Fisher said. “We also know this is a low bar. If we’re teaching and learning at high levels, this should be a chip shot.”

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) legislation requires that states annually assess students on achievement of grade-level, state-adopted standards in reading, math and science.

No more than 1% of students with significant cognitive disabilities must also be assessed in reading, mathematics and science using an alternate assessment. Students identified as English language learners (ELL) are additionally assessed in grades K-12 on achievement of state-adopted English language proficiency standards.

“We can’t compare this to previous tests, because they’re apples and oranges … but you can see where we compare to the rest of the state,” Fisher said. “We don’t just gauge our success as a district based on test numbers alone. We’re looking at the whole child.”

DeVore said the tests were new and different for students, and there is no comparative data to evaluate student improvement, which is supposed to be the primary objective of assessment tests.

“Because this test is so new, and they’ve changed everything up, we can’t compare growth,” DeVore said. “The data point that’s important to measure is student growth. It’s important for students and parents to see that. This test cannot reflect that this year, and that’s critically important.”

DeVore and Fisher said the district will take a much closer look at the test data in the coming weeks. A company that processes data is working with the district to help break it down, and Charles City school principals are going to be using a new data processing program to make all the information more user-friendly and presentable.

“We are really interested in our subgroups,” Fisher said, referring to how African-American students, Hispanics, English language learners, children living in poverty and special education students are doing compared to other groups. “We know our traditionally under-served kids will perform at lower levels, and we want to address that.”

Fisher said proficiency models were used to determine what the “cut score” should be. A score above the cut score would indicate proficiency, a score below the cut score would indicate not proficient.

“High-stakes tests are really good at measuring two things primarily — parent income and parent education level — so we keep that in mind,” Fisher said. “Our main goal is to make well-rounded, career-post-high-school-equipped students.”

Although Fisher said he thought the cut score was “a pretty arbitrary number, set by statisticians,” the number was approved by the Iowa State Board of Education.

Charles City students were below the state average in every subject, at every grade level. For example, the tests showed Charles City fifth-graders at 29% proficiency in science, while the state average is 52%. Charles City ninth graders were 65% proficient in mathematics, according to the tests, while the state average is 69%.

“We pivot everything in our school district around teaching and learning, but we are also confronting a brutal reality — we have a gap to close with test scores,” Fisher said. “The gap is specifically around our students from poverty and our students from diverse backgrounds, and we’ve got to do a much better job in those areas. We recognize that.”

Fisher said that he thought it was important that Charles City not just focus on test scores, but also look at “essential competencies, like communication, empathy, critical thinking and all the other pieces.”

“We know we have some tremendous places where we’re really growing, and we’re proud of those,” Fisher said. “We’re growing around our culture and climate, we’re growing around our college, career and post high-school readiness. We’re growing on student leadership and student engagement and equity.”

Charles City school board Director Scott Dight agreed.

“Test scores are just one measure of how successful we are as a district,” Dight said Wednesday. “There are many other measures that are just as important, or more important.”

Fisher said he cared less about test scores and more about how a kid is doing five to 10 years out of high school.

“I don’t know of a single employer in town that asks what your test scores were on an application,” he said.

No matter what the test results show, the Charles City School District would “absolutely not” start teaching to the test, according to Fisher.

“I could go to our schools tomorrow and give our staff about 10 directives — things we could do to get our test scores up tomorrow — but if we did that, our kids wouldn’t learn anything, and our staff would hate it,” he said. “We got into this business to transform lives, not just prepare people for tests.”

Fisher said he realized that if Charles City were more targeted in some areas, the test scores could come up on their own.

“We are not going to burn the village down to save it,” he said. “We are going to teach the whole child the right way, and the test scores will come up, it’s just a slower process. There are a lot of tricks — things that have been shown to get test scores up, but those kids are vastly unprepared when they walk out the high school doors. I can’t do that to our kids.”

Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP)
Charles City Student Results
Percentage of students proficient or advanced

Third Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 43%, Iowa average 65%
Mathematics: Charles City 55%, Iowa average 71%

Fourth Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 54%, Iowa average 70%
Mathematics: Charles City 55%, Iowa average 73%

Fifth Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 49%, Iowa average 67%
Mathematics: Charles City 54%, Iowa average 79%
Science: Charles City 29%, Iowa average 52%

Sixth Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 52%, Iowa average 67%
Mathematics: Charles City 60%, Iowa average 69%

Seventh Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 55%, Iowa average 69%
Mathematics: Charles City 56%, Iowa average 70%

Eighth Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 52%, Iowa average 69%
Mathematics: Charles City 53%, Iowa average 72%
Science: Charles City 38%, Iowa average 58%

Ninth Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 65%, Iowa average 76%
Mathematics: Charles City 65%, Iowa average 69%

10th Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 54%, Iowa average 74%
Mathematics: Charles City 57%, Iowa average 66%
Science: Charles City 52%, Iowa average 63%

11th Grade
English/Language Arts: Charles City 55%, Iowa average 71%
Mathematics: Charles City 55%, Iowa average 66%