LRSD tests: Improvement needed

Aspire results show some schools face low achievement label

Low achievement on state-required ACT Aspire exams by students overall and by subgroups of students at multiple Little Rock School District campuses means state-imposed labels and calls for improvement.

Superintendent Jermall Wright and his staff told the district’s school board late last week that the results from the Spring 2022 Aspire exams in math, literacy and science have put some of the district’s schools in various categories of low achievement from which they need to exit.

Additionally, school board members learned last week that more than 50% of the district’s tested students — 51.84% — showed they were in need of support in reading skills. State law requires the state to provide directed support to a school district in which 50% or more of students score “in need of support” on the state exam.

The district’s literacy support plan must include goals for improving reading achievement, plus information on prioritizing the use of state categorical funds on strategies to improve reading achievement throughout the district.

In regard to improvement, data presented to the board did show that the high school graduation rate in the capital city school system improved to 80% in the 2022 school year, up from 79.48% the previous year.

Talking about the state’s designations for low-achieving schools, Wright acknowledged that as the state of Arkansas shifts away from the ACT Aspire to a new exam beginning in the 2024-25 school year, the criteria set by the state to clear the low achievement designations will change.

So be it, he said. “The bottom line is we’ve got to get all of our schools on a path to improvement, regardless of whether the [exit] criteria changes or not,” Wright said, adding that some schools have recently moved from one designation of low achievement to a more serious designation of continued low achievement “because there has not been enough progress.”

“We have got to show improvement,” he said, “and if we show improvement and it impacts our ESSA index score and the score improves over two or three years, that is enough,” he said.

ESSA is a reference to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires states to hold schools responsible for student achievement as shown by test results. The ESSA index score is a measurement of a school’s success — including exam results and other factors such as student attendance, achievement growth over time and high school graduation rates.

School board member Vicki Hatter asked Wright if there are improvement plans customized for individual schools all the way down to individual classrooms. She said she is aware of Wright’s previously announced plans to place the district’s schools into three tiers: priority, onwatch and autonomous. The

tiers will be the basis for the level of support and resources the school system will provide to the school.

“That is the plan,” Wright said about the tier-support plan for raising student achievement.

“Because we have so many of our schools in one of the state [categories] it doesn’t need to be an individual plan, per se. We need to do some systemic work at the district level and some systemic work at the school level. The tier-support plan, when it is completed, will address all the different factors.”

Wright said board members will be informed about the work when the assessment system and strategies are completed.

“We can’t report to you what we don’t know ourselves,” he said.

The state designations for low-performing schools are:

■ Schools in need of comprehensive support and improvement. They are Title I schools whose Every Student Succeeds Act index scores are at or below the lowest 5% of index scores in their grade span in the state. The Little Rock schools in this category are: Baseline, Mabelvale, Martin Luther King and Watson elementary schools; Little Rock Southwest High; and Dunbar and Mabelvale middle schools.

■ Schools in need of more rigorous intervention-comprehensive support and improvement. They are ones identified as needing comprehensive support and improvement prior to 20222023 and did not meet the exit criteria. Those schools are Bale, Stephens and Washington elementary schools; Cloverdale Middle School; and J.A. Fair K-8 Academy.

■ Schools in need of additional targeted support and improvement. These are schools with at least one subgroup consistently underperforming at or below the bottom 5% of all Title I schools. Those schools are Brady Elementary and Mann Magnet Middle School.

Also, beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, any school that was identified as additional targeted support and improvement prior to 2022-2023 and not meeting the exit criteria will be identified as in need of comprehensive support and improvement-additional targeted support and improvement.

Those schools are Baseline, Carver, Mabelvale, King, McDermott, Otter Creek, Wakefield, Watson and Western Hills elementary schools, as well as Dunbar, Mabelvale and Pulaski Heights middle schools.