Area educators spot room for bettering EOC performances

Tri-parish high school students performed along statewide levels among four targeted subjects on the 2011-12 End-of-Course examinations.

While, Lafourche, St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes posted modest overall improvement compared to 2010-11 test results, area educators contend it is not enough.

“As with any testing, this shows some bright spots, but we still are not satisfied with any of the scores,” Terrebonne Parish School District Superintendent Philip Martin said.

“We like what we have done,” Lafourche Parish School District Secondary Education Supervisor Kevin George said. “We are performing above the state average [in two subjects], but we need to do better. In algebra, we were the sixth highest performing district, but we are not satisfied with that.”

“For the most-part, we see some improvement,” St. Mary Parish School District Assistant Superintend Keith Thibodeaux said. “Of course, we are always striving to do better.”

The EOC exam is among a series of standardized tests administered through the state to rank student performance. Unlike other tests – the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program, Integrated Louisiana Educational Assessment Program and Graduation Assessment Program – the EOC exam is not cumulative or prone to educators teaching specifically for the test.

Instead, the EOC exam measures competence levels of students enrolled in Algebra I, English II, geometry and biology at the point of completing each course during a given school year. State officials have said English III and U.S. History will be added to future EOC exams, but did not specify when that might take place.

Students earn one of four achievement classifications on the EOC. Participating students are listed as finishing either “excellent,” “good,” “fair” or “needs improvement.”

For Tri-parish public schools, this means being at or below state scores of “excellent” in all tested classes. The exceptions included scores made by St. Mary Parish students, who outperformed state-level listings in geometry by 2 percent. Lafourche Parish students rated 10 percent higher than the state “excellent” ranking of 22 percent and 1 percent higher than the state’s 15 percent score for biology.

By tested subject, 22 percent of Lafourche students posted an “excellent“ for English II in 2012, which is 3 percent better than in 2011, but still trails the state level by 4 percent. St. Mary Parish had 17 percent of students tested finish as “excellent” in 2012, a 1 percent decline from the previous year. Terrebonne Parish also declined in “excellent” English II listing from 21 percent in 2011 to 19 percent in 2012.

In biology, the state listing for “excellent” in 2012 was 3 percent better at 15 percent than the 2011 level. Comparatively, Lafourche Parish at 16 percent performed 4 percent better than in 2011. St. Mary Parish, at 14 percent was 3 percent better than the 2011 level. Terrebonne Parish improved 1 percent from last year with a 2012 excellent ranking by 15 percent of students tested.

The state-level “excellent” ranking in Algebra I for 2012 represented 22 percent of tested students and was a 4 percent increase from 2011. Lafourche Parish had 32 percent of its students testing at this level in 2012, compared to 17 percent in 2011. St. Mary Parish students in this category increased their numbers from 16 percent to 19 percent. Terrebonne Parish students were up 7 percent in “excellent” performance in 2011, with 21 percent at that level in 2012.

When it came to geometry, students statewide saw a 19 percent increase for “excellent” numbers by 3 percent in 2012 from the previous year. Lafourche Parish Students were at a 5 percent gain with 18 percent listed in the top spot. St. Mary Parish students were at 21 percent, a 4 percent gain from 2011. Terrebonne Parish had a 5 percent gain from 13 percent in 2011 to 18 percent in 2012.

The bulk of scores, based on student achievement in the four tested categories, were in the categories of “good” and “fair.”

When it came to “needs improvement” in the four categories, state ratings dropped from 11 percent to 10 percent from 2011 to 2012. Lafourche Parish students rated “needs improvement” bettered themselves by an average 3.3 percent. In St. Mary Parish, the same category of students improved by an average 2.5 percent between 2011 and 2012. Terrebonne Parish’s “needs improvement” calculations listed a 1 percent improvement over the past year.

Area administrators were not specific on what they will do to improve scores next year.