Schools

New Test Data Shows High Marks for King Philip Students.

With the new data from the 2012 MCAS scores, the students of the King Philip School District are meeting and beating state standards.

When the Massachusetts Department of Education released the results of the 2012 MCAS in September, the King Philip School District was noted for their good performance at both the middle school and high school. In her recent report to the King Philip School Committee, Assistant Superintendent and King Philip Middle School Principal Susan Gilson announced just how well the district’s students performed.

“Everyone’s been working very hard and we’re just excited to see the growth and excited to see that it was recognized within the new accountability system,” Gilson said.

According to Gilson, the King Philip School District is the only district in the Hockomock League to earn a level one accountability determination in both the middle school and high school. As the highest-ranking possible, it is an achievement that only 25% of school districts in the states and 32% of schools have been able to achieve.

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This year was the first year of the new No Child Left Behind goals. Districts will now be judged on a five-point scale with one being the highest. Before the 2012 MCAS, the goal was to achieve 100% proficiency by the 2013-14 school year, a goal that Gilson called “an aggressive goal.” Now the goal is to narrow the proficiency gap by half by the 2016-17 school year. To help measure progress, a 100-point scale known as the Composite Performance Index to show how many of the students are proficient in the subjects that are apart of the MCAS exam.

For the most part, KP students are on target to meet the goals set and are also performing well on the Progress and Performance Index (PPI).

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Using data from the past four years, the index is designed to show how students in the King Philip School District compare to students in the rest of the state. In the middle school, all but one group met their target on the PPI Index. All students at KPMS received a score of 76. High needs scored a 77, low income scored an 82m and Student with disabilities was low with a 71.

At the high school all students scored a 91 and high needs students scored an 84. Low income students and students with disabilities were not scored due to the lack of the minimum amount of students needed to compose a score.

With theses new scores, the question is where does the district go now? With the new accountability system, the district along with the rest of the state will have to prepare to adopt the Common Core Standards, a strategy to bring state education standards in sync with each other. With the new standards and initiatives, the goal once again is to focus on student learning.


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