Making assessment an important part of our instructional program and school improvement plans. Using data to help improve student growth. I realize some in our community believe our District should have cooperated with The Oregonian . I remain convinced Hillsboro schools should never participate in a flawed research project. I would like our community to know about three of the numerous reasons we chose to not participate.
Testing is about assessing how well an individual student learns.
The Oregonian s story never addressed individual student growth even though our District provided a complete analysis of student growth from 1997-1999. Comparing this year s third grade class to last year s third grade class is meaningless. Analyzing the performance of different groups of students, in many cases taught by different teachers, is not logical. As an example, David Hill Elementary School has the highest percentage of students on free and reduced lunch, and was classified by The Oregonian as an underperforming school. The actual truth is that David Hill students from Grade 3 to Grade 5 improved their test results more than any other elementary school in our District.