December 6, 2018
By: Dwayne Page
The latest report card on the DeKalb County School District reveals that students made gains in four areas of academic achievement in 2017-18 and reached the highest level of overall growth and in three of the four subjects
The new report card released this week by the Tennessee Department of Education has been retooled to make it easier for families to understand school performance and student success.
(CLICK LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE ENTIRE STATE REPORT CARD ON DEKALB COUNTY SCHOOLS)
https://reportcard.tnk12.gov/districts/210/page/DistrictOverall
The redesigned version includes a number of updates. For the first time, the report card provides schools with ratings on up to six indicators which capture different aspects of school performance including academic achievement, academic growth, chronic absenteeism, progress on English language proficiency, and graduation rate. The report card also includes a new measure called the Ready Graduate indicator that looks for students’ readiness for college and career to let families know how students are being prepared for life after graduation.
The rating system provides a score of 0.0 to 4.0 on each indicator, similar to a GPA, with 4.0 being the highest. Ratings are based either on how well the school is doing overall or how much it improved over the last year; the school receives the higher of the two.
For 2017-18, the DeKalb County School District’s overall success rate for academic achievement was 38.6% compared to 39.1% for the state. The one year success rate represents the percentage of students that scored on track or mastered on annual state tests.
The mathematics achievement rate for DeKalb County was 31.2%, a 2.9% increase from 2017 and just below the state rate of 33%.
The mathematics achievement rate represents the total number of mathematics tests on which students scored on track or mastered divided by the total number of mathematics assessments.
The assessments included in this rate are:
- Grades 3-8 Math,
- Algebra I,
- Algebra II,
- Geometry,
- Integrated Math I,
- Integrated Math II, and
- Integrated Math III.
The DeKalb English Language Arts achievement rate was 31.7%, a 1.6% increase from 2017 and slightly below the state rate of 32.8%
The English language arts (ELA) achievement rate represents the total number of ELA tests on which students scored on track or mastered divided by the total number of English language arts assessments.
The assessments included in this rate are:
- Grades 3-8 English Language Arts,
- English I,
- English II, and
- English III.
The Science achievement rate for DeKalb County was 58%, a 2.4% increase from 2017 and well above the state rate of 54.8%
The science achievement rate represents the total number of science tests on which students scored on track or mastered divided by the total number of science assessments.
The assessments included in this rate are:
- Grades 5-8 Science,
- Biology I, and
- Chemistry.Grades 3-4 Science is not included due to shortened testing.
The DeKalb achievement rate in social studies was 36.1%, an increase of 11.7% from 2017 and just under the state rate of 37.7%
The social studies achievement rate represents the total number of social studies tests on which students scored on track or mastered divided by the total number of social studies assessments.
The assessments included in this rate are Grades 3-8 Social Studies and US History.
Overall the DeKalb County District reached a level five growth rate, the highest attainable as well as in the subject areas of English Language Arts, Science, and social studies. DeKalb reached level three in mathematics.
Overall growth provides an indication as to the amount of growth achieved by students in the school or district, regardless of whether or not the student is on grade level. Based on the growth achieved by their students, the school is assigned a level between Level 1 and Level 5, with Level 5 being the highest.