New standardized test, same trends in S.C. schools

About three out of 10 public school students in South Carolina are testing below grade level, according to results released today of the PASS standardized test.

With the first year of the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards - which replaced the 10-year-old Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test as the state's accountability measure - education officials cautioned that results will serve more as a baseline for the future than a harbinger of student performance.

"This whole issue of accountability and measuring learner outcomes is somewhat of a subjective process," said state Education Superintendent Jim Rex. "This is a process that will continue to require adjustments and explanation."

Still, some trends seemed to continue from past years - including that third-graders overall scored the highest in subject areas, with eighth-graders lagging, a phenomenon that other states also report.

Passing rates range between 60 percent and 80 percent, according to the numbers released by the state Education Department.

In 2008, the rate of students who passed the Palmetto Achieve Challenge Tests ranged from 56 percent to 88 percent.

Science remains the worst category for all grade levels; only 62 percent of third-graders met or exceeded standards, about the same statistic as eighth-graders.

While there are now three scoring levels instead of four - Exemplary, Met, and Not Met -the trends in the five subject areas track the PACT data, education officials said in unveiling the results today.

The PASS data is more elaborate and provides parents and school districts a more detailed accounting of each child's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the progress of individual schools.

The data, required under state and federal law, will figure into the development of state report cards and the federal measure known as AYP, or annual yearly progress, a standard developed under the No Child Left Behind law.

Rex said parents should consider the data among a host of factors when they assess the caliber of their schools.

"This area of measurement and accountability is partly science and partly art - parents need to draw conclusions about their school and what is happening to their school based upon a lot of inputs and not just this data," Rex said.

Nevertheless, Lexington-Richland 5 touted its place among the top scorers statewide. The district noted it had the second-highest percentage of students statewide score at the Exemplary level in the English/language arts, math and social studies portions of the test.

This story was originally published February 5, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "New standardized test, same trends in S.C. schools."