Originally Posted Office for Education Policy Blog (December 12, 2012)
Excepting Holiday weeks in which schools were not in session, we have been releasing biweekly OEP Awards recognizing high academic achievement of Arkansas Schools on Arkansas Benchmark and End-of-Course (EOC) exams taken in the spring of 2012.To date, we have released the following “chapters” of the OEP Awards report:
- Section I: High Achieving “Overall” Schools in Arkansas Based on Performance on the Benchmark
- Section II: Beating the Odds: High Achieving Schools Serving Low-Income Communities
- Section III: High Achieving Elementary Schools
- Section IV: High Achieving Middle Schools
- Section V: High Achieving High Schools
- Section VI: Most Improved Schools: Benchmark Growth
Coinciding with section VI, we also released a new OEP Benchmark Growth Database which measures school-level growth on the Arkansas Benchmark exams in literacy and math over a period from 2005-06 through 2011-12.
It’s been two weeks since our last release of OEP Awards…and today we bring you the FINAL installment of this year’s OEP Awards: Most Improved High Schools: End-of-Course Exam Growth. Much like our OEP Awards for Most Improved Schools on the Arkansas Benchmark Exam, the latest set of OEP Awards also comes with an accompanying database of EOC exam growth for each of the four EOC exams in Arkansas: Algebra, Biology, Geometry, and Grade 11 Literacy. EOC Exams in Algebra, Geometry, and Grade 11 Literacy have a baseline that combines the 2005-06 and 2006-07 academic years as a starting point and the 2010-11/2011-12 academic years as the outcome. Again, we measure growth as the difference between the outcome year and the baseline year. However, because the inaugural year of the Biology EOC exam is different from the other three tests, the time-span for growth is different for this subject as it uses a baseline of 2008-09/2009-10 but the same outcome year of 2010-11/2011-12.
Therefore, today we congratulate Ashdown High School (Ashdown SD) for topping the list as the most improved high school on the Algebra EOC Exam. Over the growth period from 2005-06/2006-07 through 2010-11/2011-12, Ashdown High’s EOC Algebra GPA increased almost a full point from 2.01 to a 2.93. That marked the highest growth among all schools in the state. When compared to the statewide Algebra EOC growth of 0.29 GPA points, this is a remarkable achievement! Congratulations to Bryan Ledford and the Algebra teachers at Ashdown High!
On the Geometry EOC Exam, three schools grew over a full GPA point!Congratulations to West Side High (West Side SD), Oden High School (Ouachita SD), and Rogers High School (Rogers SD) for GPA growth on the Geometry EOC Exam of 1.22 points, 1.16 points, and 1.05 points, respectively. The OEP tips its hat to principals Rick Waters, William Edwards, Robert Moore and theirgeometryteachers for this accomplishment!
There are plenty more schools receiving OEP Awards for EOC Exam growth – Click here to see if your school made the list!
On a final note, we at the OEP would like to reiterate how it is a joy to recognize schools across the Natural State for remarkable performance. There is good news worth reporting with regard to school performance on statewide exams, and we hope our series of OEP Awards have been welcome news for the schools in your area…we know we’ve enjoyed delivering it to you.