1. Lauren Kinsella Dr. Wright ITEC 7305
Data Overview
Smitha Middle School
Cobb County School District
Lauren Kinsella
Dr. Wright
ITEC 7305

2. Purpose
The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of data for Smitha Middle School over a 5 year period. This will be done using demographic information and state assessment results. Data will be compared to district and state data. By the end of this presentation, educators will be able to use this information as a basis for classroom instruction.

3. Demographics
Let’s begin by looking at the demographic information for Smitha Middle School from 2008 to As you can see from this line graph and chart, the 2 largest subgroups are Black and Hispanic students. White, Asian, and Multiracial students are minority groups. This has remained relatively stable over this 5 year period. However, it is significant to point at that in the school year, Hispanic students replaced blacks as the largest subgroup making up 43% of the overall school population.

4. Other Demographics 2010-2011 2009-2010 2008-2009
Next lets break down those demographic further into students with disabilities, students with limited English Proficency, and students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch. As you can see from these graphs, Smitha has a large percentage of students who are eligible for free/reduced lunch at right around 80% over this 3 year period. That is signicantly higher than the system and state percentages. You can also see that Smitha has higher percentages of SWDs and Limited English Proficient students than the system and state percentages.

5. Now that we have covered demographics, lets look at student achievement as measured by CRCT scores. This graph shows the percentage of students who met or exceeded standards on all subtests on the CRCT here at Smitha Middle School, in the school district, and in the state. Cobb County School district represented in yellow has much higher acheivement than both the state and Smitha. During the school year, Smitha’s overall student achievement is much lower than the state and district in all 3 grade levels. I would also like to point out that Smitha met AYP this school year.
SMS number of enrolled students = 877

6. Here we have the same data but for the following school year 2009-2010
Here we have the same data but for the following school year While Smitha still has work to do in terms of catching up to the district and state levels, we have made progress towards closing this gap. 6th and 7th grades have both made increases from the previous year, and Smitha again met AYP this school year.
SMS number of enrolled students = 820

7. Now if we look at the school year we can see similar data as the year before. 6th and 7th grades are making gains, but 8th grade is not. It is extremely alarming to see a 35% overall pass rate, so I would like to look at the data closer to see what is causing this problem. Another concern for this year is the fact that Smitha did not meet AYP.
SMS number of enrolled students = 910

8. This slide presents some graphs broken down by subject area over this 3 year period. Take a look at the first set of which covers 8th grade. I brought up that it appears that 8th grade is underperforming the other 2 grades and an examination of these graphs shows why. 8th grade is showing a strength in reading and english language arts over this period with fairly small Does not meet percentages as compared to the other grades. However, their science and social studies fail percentages are very high ranging from 47% to 53%. Perhaps this shows us why their overall achievement average is so low.

9. The next area that I want to look at is the 8th Grade Writing Test because this is an area that has been emphasized as an area for improvement. This graph shows our scores compared to the district and state averages. Again you can see that the district is outperforming the state with as high as an 88% pass rate overall in Smitha is drastically below the district average, but we are clearly making strides.

10. Smitha Middle School 2011-2012 CRCT Scores
Now I’d like to look at a little more current data to identify trends, strengths and weaknesses, and compare subgroups. This graph shows the CRCT scores by subject area for the school year. Overall it is clear that we are making great strides at increasing student achievement, but we do have some areas to work on. Our numbers in English Language Arts and Reading are impressive with Does not meet percentages of 5 and 10 percent. These 2 also have high exceed percentages at 23 and 25%. Now language arts teachers need to work on pushing up that bottom 10% and pushing students who are currently meeting into the exceeding category. Looking at the math scores, we need to put this area onto the watch list. The 18% Does Not Meet percentage can certainly be improved, but the 21% exceeding percentage is impressive. Finally, our main areas of weakness for this school year are science and social studies both with does not meet percentages around 30%.
School Year
Subject
Number Tested
Does Not Meet
Meets
Exceeds
English Language Arts
925
10%
67%
23%
Mathematics
926
18%
60%
21%
Reading 5%
70%
25%
Science
959
31%
53%
16%
Social Studies
947
32%
43%

11. 2011-2012 Smitha Middle School CRCT Scores
Students with Disabilities
Subject
Does Not Meet
Meets
Exceeds
English Language Arts
29%
67% 4%
Mathematics
39%
54% 6%
Reading 8%
Remember that Smitha has a large percentage of Students with Disabilities, students on free or reduced lunch, and students with limited English proficiency. So next I’d like to look at these subgroups and see how they are doing compared to the rest of the student population to determine if any achievement gaps exist. This graph shows the 2012 CRCT scores for students with disabilities as compared to students without disabilities. Overall, the percentage of students who met in both groups have similar percentages (ranging from 54 to 69%). The biggest difference is in the percentage of students who did not meet and students who exceeded. The percentage of SWDs who exceeded is extremely low, while the percentage of SWDs who did not meet is fairly high ranging from 29 to 39 percent. This number is far greater than the percentage of students w/o disabilities who did not meet. It appears that there is an achievement gap between these 2 groups, and we need to work collaboratively with the special education department to identify the problem and make purposeful changes.
Students without disabilities
Subject
Does Not Meet
Meets
Exceeds
English Language Arts 6%
67%
26%
Mathematics
15%
61%
23%
Reading 4%
69%
28%

12. 2011-2012 Smitha Middle School CRCT Scores
Economically Disadvantaged
Subject
Does Not Meet
Meets
Exceeds
English Language Arts
11%
70%
19%
Mathematics
21%
63%
16%
Reading 6%
74%
20%
Next lets view the data for our economically disadvantaged students. As you can see just from glancing at these graphs, the number of students who exceed standards his far higher for students who are not economically disadvantaged. This raises the question: Are we doing everything that we can for our economically disadvantaged students?
Not Economically Disadvantaged
Subject
Does Not Meet
Meets
Exceeds
English Language Arts 4%
55%
41%
Mathematics 9%
49%
43%
Reading 1%
54%
45%

13. 2011-2012 Smitha Middle School CRCT Scores
Limited English Proficient
Not Limited English Proficient
Finally, review these graphs that compare the scores of students with limited English Proficiency and English Proficient students. Again you can see that the DNM percentages are very high for our limited english proficient students (ranging from 9% to 57%), compared to DNM percentages ranging from 4% to 27%, there is an obvious achievement gap between these 2 groups within our school.

14. English/Language Arts and Reading Weaknesses:
What’s next?
Strengths:
English/Language Arts and Reading
Weaknesses:
Science and Social Studies
Subgroups
Achievement Gaps?
Are you seeing achievement gaps in your classroom?
Are we doing everything we can for students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, and students with limited English proficiency?
In conclusion, I want to remind you of our strengths and weaknesses. English Language Arts and Reading are clear areas of strength for us, so we need to continue what we are doing in these areas. The numbers indicate that we need to place immediate attention on our science and social studies data teams to determine why scores are so low and we can do to change them. I also want you to think about what we discussed about sub groups and achievement gaps. Are you seeing achievement gaps within your classroom? Are we doing everything that we can for students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, and students with limited English profiency?