English up more than math

The Wasco Union Elementary School District is improving on its performance against state academic standards, with gains in English Language Arts outpacing those in math.

Assistant Superintendent David Bowling reported on the results at a WUESD board meeting earlier this month.

The Dashboard – the state reporting tool -- has been used since 2015, and WIESD’s overall achievement numbers in English Language Arts have steadily risen from 21% in 2015 to 35% in 2019.

Math has had a slower improvement, with scores climbing from 13% in 2015 to 22% this year.

Scores are also calculated for each grade separately. Third-grade ELA scores rose from 20% in 2015 to 41% in 2019, while math went from 20% in 2015 and 38% this year.

Fourth-grade students also rose in ELA from 12% to 26%, an increase of 14 points while math went from 19% to 22%, a small increase of 3 points while their math scores went from 6% to 9%, an increase of 3 points.

Fifth-grade students went from 24% in ELA to 38%, an increase of 14 points, while in math they started out in 2015 at 6% and increased to 15% in 2019.

The sixth-grade students in ELA went from 21% to 31%, a jump of 10 percentage points, while in math they moved from 13% to 21%, a difference of 8 percentage points.

Seventh graders started out at 24% in ELA and ended up at 37% -- a difference of 13 percentage points -- while in math they went from 9% to 14%, a difference of 5 points.

Eighth-graders in ELA went from 23% to 27%, an increase of 4 percentage points, while in math they went from 16% to 17%, an increase of only 1 percentage point.

Bowling stated that the district was going to work on improving scores by focusing on math.