MEA Results: Reading

Here are the reading results only for grades three through eight. (All District scores were published by us here.) The new MEAs were administered in March 2006, so the eighth grade shown here is this fall's 9th grade, the 7th grade is this year's eighth, and so on.

Here's one way to think about these scores: Three years from now the high school will be comprised of a group of students approximately 40%*of whom, three years previously, did not meet or only partially met the standard for reading. Incidentally -- or not -- this is about the state average.

What kind of high school can one conduct when basic academic skills are at this level? If you want to say, well, this is about the state average, then let's ask the bigger question: What kind of a state can we have when basic life skills are at this level?

Are the standards set too high? This doesn't seem likely. But if they are, we still do not distinguish ourselves in any way.

One has to ask, with all the emphasis on child literacy and the District's considerable investment in Reading Recovery®, why don't we do better?

*Of that year's seniors, 33% of all in this bracket, of the juniors 41% do, of the sophomores 36% do, and of the "freshmen" 53-55% do.