Earle school officials committed to improving ACT scores

Earle school officials committed to improving ACT scores

‘ We have a plan to catch up,’ says Superintendent

news@theeveningtimes.com

Earle Class of 2018 scored nearly two points lower on the ACT exam than the state average, but school officials are implementing new virtual technology which they believe will help close the gap.

State appointed superintendent Dr. Richard Wilde went over the scores with the Earle City Council in his monthly update and said that the city needs to do a better job developing a culture where academics are just as important as athletics.

“It isn’t criticizing where we’re at,” Wilde said. “It’s all about getting better. It’s just making sure everybody is aware of where we are and setting some goals to get better.”

According to the report, the class averaged a 16.1 compared to the state aver- age of 18.1 Students scored a 15.7 in English, 16.6 in math, 16.9 in reading, and 16.7 in science.

“We are at 2.7 below the state average,” said high school counselor Felicia Watson. So we have some steps to go to get there. But I believe we can get there.”

The state benchmarks are 18 in English, 22 in math, 22 in reading, and 23 in science.

Watson said ideally, a 19 is the minimum what you would want students to average on the ACT.

“The benchmarks are what the ACT through research has deemed as being the minimum score needed for the students to have a 50 percent chance of making a B or more in those particular college classes and 75 percent make a C or higher,” Watson said.

A 19 is the minimum ACT score that two-year and four-year colleges will accept a student without requiring them to enroll in non-credit remedial courses.

“So our goal is to try to get every student to meet those benchmarks so they won’t be going to need remedial instruction and have to pay for classes they don’t get credit for,” Watson said.

Watson said one of the reasons ACT scores are low is because the school district has had a high teacher turnover rate, particularly in math.

“Most were with Teach For America,” Watson said.

“They come in and fulfill their two-year obligation and they leave. Or, they get some experience with us and they move on for bigger salaries in other districts. So our students haven’t been getting that continuous, rigorous math teaching to get where they other students are getting.”

Teach For America is a non-profit organization that provides teachers to low-income areas in an effort to provide qualified instruction to help raise student performance.

Wilde said statewide there is a shortage of math instructors.

“Everybody is vying for that same pool of certified instructors,” Wilde added.

To help address the problem, the school district has begun using Virtual Arkansas, an on-line program taught by certified teachers.

Students receive lessons twice a week taught on-line by a live instructor where they are able to interact and chat with the teacher. The classes are facilitated by an in-class tutor who helps with lessons.

Virtual Arkansas teachers do all of the grading and collaborate with the facilitator and are the teacher of record.

“They are very active with the students and parents,” Watson said. “They chat with them and send them messages. They have prepared lessons and homework. It’s very hands-on.”

Wilde said classes taught by Virtual Arkansas instructors are actually more rigorous.

“The concept is you have digital lessons being delivered with the Internet and then the tutors are working with the students to fill in the gaps,” Wilde said. “The grading is more difficult. It is a way to get the rigor up quickly as well as to help our teachers who were hired with degrees, but not with certification. Under current state law we are permitted to hire people with BA degrees but don’t necessarily have teaching degrees. We have a number of staff in that area. So what we opted to do is go digital and get certified personnel and then use our personnel to help the students do tutoring in the classroom.”

Wilde said it is going to take some time to adjust to the higher standards, but the district has a support plan in place.

“Expectations have gone up so the grading will be more difficult,” Wilde said.

“But we have a plan to catch up as we move in to this. We will probably do much better next year than they will do this first semester.”

By Mark Randall