MEAP Results Released for Brighton Area Schools

The Michigan Department of Education has released the 2011 Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) scores for districts throughout the state.

Brighton Area Schools outperformed the state in every subject and grade level but 8th grade math, which fell short from the Michigan state average of 29.4 percent by 0.3 percent.

Brighton 4th graders' writing proficiency was 69.3 percent, while the statewide average was 44.5 percent, a difference of 24.8 percentage points. Seventh graders' writing proficiency rate was 62.6 percent, which was 15.3 percentage points higher than the statewide average, at 47.3.

Ninth-graders tested in social studies were 18.9 percentage points higher than the state average.The percent of student sin the district who met or exceeded expectations increased slightly from 46.9 percent in 2010 to 47.6 percent in 2011.

Brighton Area Schools' Assistant Superintendent of Instruction and Curriculum Laura Surrey said the district was very pleased with its reading and writing scores.

"It's really gratifying because that's where the district focused a lot of its time and resources," she said. "I have concern, of course for the math scores. It didn't surprise me, but it does concern me. And when you see those cut scores it really does make my concerns very real. I think the whole county is very concerned about the 8th grade math scores. There was a huge dip there."

Surrey said the cut scores in math have gotten her attention and its an area she is working on now. The district will be purchasing new math materials and textbooks this summer to use this fall, according to Surrey.

Surrey said that in the short term the district must change the focus and teach the essentials, but in the long term, instruction is key.

"It's the instruction that we really want to tighten up and make sure its delivered in the best way possible," Surrey said. "And that's how we got where we are in reading and writing. We have the strongest reading and writing scores in third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades in two counties."

This is the first year applying the new, more rigorous cut scores that were adopted by the State Board of Education in September 2010.

Cut Scores are the passing scores that distinguish between whether a student is advanced, proficient, partially proficient or not proficient in certain subjects. With the more rigorous cut scores, students need to get roughly 65 percent of the answers correct to be judged proficient, instead of the previous benchmark of only 39 percent.

The state also retroactively adjusted 2010 scores, as well as other previous years, to reflect the new cut scores. They did this for better comparison and so that there were not huge, unexplainable drops in scores.

Surrey said the previous cut scores were not good for the district because they lulled it into a false sense of security seeing those high proficiency scores.

"The cut scores needed to happen, they should have happened four to five years ago," Surrey said. "We probably wouldn't be in the situation we are today with the percentage drops."

Surrey plans to go over the cut scores at the next Board of Education meeting on Feb. 27.

Brighton Patch will take a deeper dive into the data with building-by-building numbers. In the meantime, here's a quick look at the percentage of local students judged proficient by grade level and subject area:

MEAP Math Scores

Here's a look, grade by grade, at the percentage of students proficient in the math portion of the test.

MEAP Reading Scores

Here's a look, grade by grade, at the percentage of students proficient in the reading portion of the test.

MEAP Writing Scores

Here's a look, grade by grade, at the percentage of students proficient in the writing portion of the test.

MEAP Science Scores

Here's a look, grade by grade, at the percentage of students proficient in the science portion of the test.

MEAP Social Studies Scores

Here's a look, grade by grade, at the percentage of students proficient in the social studies portion of the test.

Source: Michigan Department of Education