State standards: Kettering students met all 26 state standards in testing, attendance and graduation rates. Kettering has improved annually in this category, which primarily requires that 75 percent of students test "proficient" on 24 tests from third-grade through high school. After missing four standards in 2007, Kettering missed two in 2008, one in 2009 and none this year.
Performance index: Kettering's index continues to climb, from 99.2 in 2007, to 99.9, then 100.2, then an all-time district high of 101.0 this year. The index goes beyond simple proficiency, using a weighted scale to measure whether students test as advanced, accelerated, proficient, basic or limited.
Adequate yearly progress: This standard requires that each subgroup of students (by race, economics, disability and English proficiency) meet state benchmarks. Kettering schools had missed AYP the past three years because students with disabilities or "limited English proficiency" did not meet reading or math standards. In the 2008-09 report, that failure took a district that had otherwise excellent-level scores, and knocked it down to a grade of "continuous improvement." This year, every subgroup made AYP in both reading and math.
Value-added: For the second year in a row, the state said Kettering's fourth- through eighth-graders made more than one year's worth of academic progress in one year's time. Kettering's test scores and AYP achievements earned it an excellent rating, but it is the value-added measure that pushes Kettering to "excellent with distinction."
Graduation rate: Last year's rate of 97.9 percent already outpaced the 94 percent average for what the state calls "comparable districts." This year, Kettering's graduation rate ticked just higher, to 98.0 percent, well above the comparable districts, and ahead of Oakwood, Centerville, Beavercreek and Springboro.
“When we got ‘continuous improvement’ last year, we said, ‘We’ve got to do something about this,’ and we set a district goal to make excellent,” Superintendent James Schoenlein said. “It’s not just working hard, it’s also working smartly and knowing what you’re doing. You have to teach the kids the right things, and you have to teach well, and have a structure to funnel help to those kids who need help.”
Schoenlein said the district’s teachers and school principals deserve enormous credit for the strong report card, saying their work with students of all ability levels and their response with students who struggled to grasp concepts showed real skill.
“If you have a class of 26 kids, you’re going to have a few kids who really struggle and a few who are way advanced, and all kinds scattered in between, and you’re expected to write six or seven different lesson plans for all of those kids,” Schoenlein said. “That’s tough business ... Our teachers really stepped up. I’m as proud as I can be of our teachers.”
Schoenlein said the diversity of Kettering’s students is a strength and a challenge.
“We are sometimes reluctant to say it, but we have a 35 percent poverty rate, 30 percent student mobility rate, 17 percent special education and 150 kids who can’t speak English very well,” he said. “And we still made excellent with distinction.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2278 or jkelley@Dayton
DailyNews.com.
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