MEAP shows math gains

Elementary, middle grade results up, but language skills at issue

Christina Stolarz and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News

Michigan's elementary and middle school students brought up their scores in the math portion of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program for the fourth straight year, according to results released Thursday.

While parents, educators and experts cheered the improvement, they expressed concerns about students' language skills. Some say reading could be getting short-changed because it isn't required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, while others say reading is more difficult to teach -- especially in poor districts that don't have as many reading materials.

"If you look at No Child Left Behind, there's a strong emphasis on math and science skills and not so much emphasis on reading," said Mary Jane Riley , a seventh-grade ancient world history teacher at Madison Middle School in Pontiac. "But reading is a basic skill for all subject areas."

The concern is warranted, said Sharif Shakrani, director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University.

"If you're not proficient in reading, you're not apt to understand what you're reading in science and other areas because you lack the key to understanding what you're reading," he said.

Students in third through ninth grades statewide took the MEAP test in October to assess skills taught the previous year. They were tested in math, science, social studies, reading and writing, with the latter two combined to produce an overall English language arts score.

The reading results were mixed, with minimal increases and decreases. The greatest increase came from seventh-graders, where 79 percent of students scored proficient or above compared with 72 percent last year.

State officials are uncertain why reading scores haven't improved across the board, but they hope increased attention on early childhood development will set the foundation, said Michigan Department of Education Spokesman Martin Ackley.

"There's always a concern when 20 percent, 30 percent of our students aren't proficient in reading," said Ackley, noting he hopes school districts use federal stimulus funds to improve reading levels.

While reading levels in Detroit were below the state average, 92 percent of fifth-graders at Mann Elementary School scored a proficient or above in reading.

"It makes me know that all the work I put into training and the practice has paid off," said Cynthia Boyce, a fifth-grade language arts teacher who used MEAP preparation books with students in September. "They get a pizza party because of how well they did on the test."

The state is pleased with the MEAP results, especially in math, where more than 75 percent of third- through eighth-graders tested as proficient or above. The greatest improvement was among the seventh-graders, where 83 percent scored proficient or above compared with 73 percent last year.

Scores in social studies and writing also rose overall; however, only 1 percent of the state's eighth-graders reached the advanced level in writing -- the only group in the state that performed at that level.

Officials at Southgate Community School District said writing continues to be problematic, even though students in most grade levels were at or near the state's average proficiency levels.

"We're concentrating very hard on the writing," said Nancy Nagle, associate superintendent of curriculum, instruction and assessment at the district. "While some of the scores are not as good as we were hoping, if you look at the low scores across the (board), there's probably a bigger problem."

About 64 percent of Royal Oak's fourth-graders were proficient on the writing test, compared with the 44 percent average in the rest of the state.

"Writing is not an area students usually do well in, and we worked hard on it in the last two years," said Superintendent Thomas Moline.

The state will revamp the writing portion of the MEAP to better assess students' writing skills, Ackley said. The writing portion of the test is too short and, therefore, not thorough enough to grasp a long-range view of writing skills.

Brighton Area Schools saw improvement in writing and reading scores, said Baiba Jensen, the district's executive director of curriculum. She attributes the improvement to the schools' writer workshops, which has allowed teachers to develop consistency in writing requirements. "It's certainly making a difference for us," she said. "We're going to keep that whether we have writing scores or not for each grade."

In social studies, which is tested in grades six and nine, there were slight increases over the previous year. The percentage of students attaining the level of proficient or above in science, which is tested in fifth and eighth grade, remained relatively constant.

Staff Writers Tanveer Ali, Candice Williams and Shawn Lewis contributed.