2014 Idaho School District Advanced Placement Results

In 2014, 9,556 Advanced Placement exams were taken by 5443 Idaho students (about 13% of Idaho's juniors and seniors). Idaho's exam numbers had been increasing for the past few years, but in 2014 decreased slightly.

The percentage of exams scored "3" or above, an indicator of eligibility for college credit or waiver, stood at 66% in 2014, down slightly from the 69% "pass rate" of 2009. The national "pass rate" on these rigorous exams in 2014 was 59%.

Advanced Placement is the "gold standard" of post-secondary dual credit programs because of the rigorous nature of its exams, offered in 34 subject areas, and because AP scores are accepted for credit by the vast majority of colleges around the country. The most popular exams in Idaho in 2014 were English Language and Composition (1867), English Literature and Composition (1148), U.S. History (1120), and Calculus AB (912).

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Idaho students taking AP exams were from the Boise District, which has 9% of statewide enrollment::

Sixty-one Idaho school districts, over half the statewide total, gave no Advanced Placement exams in 2014. Only 15 districts gave over 100 exams. Boise gave 3234 exams, about 35% of the statewide total.

Since most Idaho districts are relatively small, a good way to look at commitment to rigor in Idaho districts is to compare the number of students participating in at least one AP test with the total number of juniors and seniors in the district. To account for extremely small numbers , we used just districts which gave 50 or more exams in 2014.

Blaine County, Boise, McCall, and Vallivue each had over 30% of juniors and seniors take at least one Advanced Placement exam. Vallivue is particularly notable in that they have made a substantial commitment to rigor in the past decade, implementing new AP courses, expanding opportunities, and initiating the AVID program.

Finally, many districts nationwide have expanded opportunities for students to take Advanced Placement coursework and exams. As indicated, passing percentages have declined slightly in Idaho, as more students have experienced the rigor of coursework and exams 

The Madison School District (Rexburg) had an amazing 96% pass rate on 111 AP exams in 2014. However, only 11% of Madison juniors and seniors took an AP exam, compared with Blaine County, where 47% of juniors and seniors took at least one AP exam.

Clearinghouse Findings on Factors in College Entry, Science & Engineering Majors

The National Student Clearinghouse provides a variety of services to schools districts and universities around the country, including a tracking service used to calculate reliable college-entry and retention rates. The Boise District has used Clearinghouse services since 2005.

The Clearinghouse has a research group that is increasingly producing interesting reports about patterns of college attendance and graduation patterns nationwide. An article today in the Huffington Post by Jennifer Klein told of an NSC research report indicating that poverty is the strongest factor influencing college attendance, regardless of minority or rural/urban status of the school. Here is the NSC research report, in which the college enrollment patterns of over 3.5 million students were studied.

Though few would be surprised by the findings in the NSC report, it points up the importance of scholarship and grant opportunities for students with potential such as Capital alum Kristie Hoang, last year's Bev and George Harad AVID scholarship winner, who's attending the University of Southern California this fall.

NSC researchers have also done analyses of Science and Engineering degree patterns among students nationwide in their database. One article examines patterns of Science and Engineering degrees by gender, and finds that degree completions are increasing rapidly for both women and men, and that the percentages by gender of S & E degree completion are equivalent.

However, the study includes social science and psychology degrees in the Science and Engineering category. When the data are broken down, 81% of Engineering degrees are attained by males, a statistic that has not changed since 2009. The percentages in other areas: Math and Computer Science, 74% male, and Physical Sciences and Earth and Ocean Sciences, 62% males.

On the other hand, 58% of Biological and Ag Science degrees and 62% of Social Science and Psychology degrees were attained by females.

BSU Retention, 6-Year Grad Rates Soar

It’s a big ship to turn, but Boise State personnel are making significant progress in retention and graduation rate among their undergraduate students. BSU’s retention rate from freshman to sophomore year has improved by 13 percent in the past decade, from 62% for the class of 2003 to 75% for the class of 2013. The First-time Full-time 6-year graduation rate, as reported to the National Council for Education Statistics and featured on the College Navigator site, increased by 9% from the class of 2006 to the class of 2008, and is up 15% over the last 9 graduating classes.

In fact, the graduation rate improvement is among the best in the nation among 4-year schools. If you think about a 9% gain in terms of an entering class of 5000 at BSU, that’s 450 more 6-year graduates in 2014 than in 2012. Exciting news for Treasure Valley students and parents.

When comparing to peer institutions in the west, BSU’s grad rate growth outpaced Portland State University (+4%), and Fresno State University (0%), and was higher than every peer institution to which BSU compares itself.

Other Idaho universities made growth as well, as you can see in the chart below:

Boise State Vice President Dr. Sharon McGuire illuminated some of the process improvements made at BSU which have likely affected retention and graduation rates, many of which came from the recommendations of a Student Success Task Force in 2005. Here are a few of the actions taken:

• Hiring a person to oversee the undergraduate experience at BSU
• Increasing course capacity to support progress toward degrees
• Developing waitlists for students wanting to take courses that were full
• Requiring advising sessions for all first year students
• Promoting a “Finish in Four” program to encourage students to complete their degrees in four years. 
• Adding additional advisor positions to support general and college-based advising
• Expanding the new student summer orientation to a two-day overnight experience to build community and focus on academics
• Increasing opportunities for first-year seminars, leaning communities, and residential colleges
• Developing early warning systems in a number of first-year courses to identify and support students who are struggling
• Restructuring early math courses to increase student time with instructors, increase instructor preparation and training, and better assess current student knowledge.
• Prompting students to review their Academic Advisement Report at 30, 60, and 90 credits to keep students on-track for graduation. 
• Enhanced academic support in traditionally difficult courses by offering peer facilitated session 
• Contacting students who are eligible to enroll but have not to inquire about barriers which might be impacting their registration.
• Offering faculty development activities through the Center for Teaching and Learning and college-based initiatives to help foster student learning and persistence.

Clearly, the folks at BSU would say that more improvement is needed. But what they’ve put in place is working, and benefitting students. Congrats, Boise State!

Poverty and Kindergarten Preparedness

In the previous post (Idaho Kindergartners - Preparation for Reading) we discussed the state of reading preparation among kindergartners around the state of Idaho.

Since the free-reduced lunch data are available for schools around the state on the ISDE website, and research indicates that the two variables are related, we decided to run a scattergram portraying the relationship between preparedness and free/reduced lunch percentages.

For the chart, we used 2013 free-reduced lunch percentages for schools with over 25 entering kindergartners, and Fall 2013 IRI percentages of reading-ready students for those schools. A few of the schools in the comparison are kindergarten-only schools, for which lunches are not provided, so we used the District percentage of free/reduced instead.

Here is the scattergram:



By way of explanation, Van Buren and Sacajawea in Caldwell have free/reduced percentages of 91 and 90, respectively, and 23% of kindergartners at those schools achieved a "3" on the Fall 2013 IRI. Conversely, Hidden Springs (Boise) had 6% free/reduced and 82% scores of "3" on the IRI, and Galileo in Meridian had 11% free-reduced and 87% prepared to read.

As you can see, the correlation between preparation and free/reduced percentage the two variables is quite high (-.755) and negative ((-1) would be a perfect negative correlation).

If a pilot of pre-k is initiated in Idaho, it might make sense to carefully select high poverty/low-preparedness participating schools, so as to maximize the possible return on investment. If Basin District's experience is any indicator, the pilot will yield tremendous gains in reading literacy.

Idaho Kindergartners - Preparation for Reading

In the 2014 legislative session, Representatives Hy Kloc (D-Boise) and Doug Hancey (R-Rexburg) brought a bill that would have initiated a pilot of pre-kindergarten in the state of Idaho. Though the bill did not pass, it has stimulated much conversation about the benefits of Pre-k.

Several years ago, the Treasure Valley Educational Partnership set goals in five areas and identified baseline metrics for those goals. Goal 1 is “Prepared for School”, and the baseline measure is student performance on the Fall Kindergarten measure of the Idaho Reading Indicator, a reading screener used with K-3 students in Idaho. The data used herein come from the Fall, 2013 Kindergarten IRI. Thanks to TVEP Data Director Sarah Weppner for the idea for this post.

STATEWIDE DATA

The Fall Kindergarten measure for 2013 contains the most recent Idaho data on reading preparedness. Here’s how the statewide data looked for Idaho in 2013:

CHARTER SCHOOLS

A substantially higher percentage of Kindergartners entering charters around the state were prepared for reading than were in elementary schools around the state. Of the 33 charters in which students took the Fall K IRI, only five had percentages below the state average: Taylor’s Crossing (Idaho Falls), Heritage Academy (Jerome), Chief Tahgee (Fort Hall), American Heritage (Cottonwood), and Another Choice(virtual).

The five charters which had the highest percentage of entering students prepared for reading were:

Victory (Nampa) – 96%
Moscow – 95%
Falcon Ridge (Kuna) – 88%
Anser (Boise) – 88%
IDEA (online) – 85%
North Star (Eagle) – 85%
Sage (Boise) – 80%

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Only two districts, Moscow (69%) and Meridian (70%) had higher percentages of prepared kindergartners than the statewide charter percentage. The districts with 50 kindergartners or more that had the highest percentage of prepared entering kindergartners were:

What’s interesting is the gap between the districts with the highest percentages of students prepared for reading and those with the lowest. While Meridian’s percent prepared is at 70%, five districts had 30% or fewer of their entering kindergartners prepared to read:



ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Fifty-three percent of statewide elementary schools were above the state average in terms of readiness for reading on the Fall K IRI. Among schools with over 20 kindergartners, the highest percentages were:

Northside, Lake Pend O’Reille – 91%
Donnell, Meridian – 88%
Highlands, Boise – 87%
Riverside, Boise – 86%
Siena, Meridian – 83%
Sunnyside, Idaho Falls – 82%
Hidden Springs, Boise – 82%
Seven Oaks, Meridian – 82%
Summerwind, Meridian – 82%
Longfellow, Boise – 81%

Of interest is the elementary school in the Basin School District (Idaho City), which has run a preschool for a number of years. Though Idaho City Elementary had only 14 kindergartners in 2013, 11 of those students (79%) were ready for reading according to the Fall IRI results.

According to Basin Superintendent John MacFarlane, the percentage of prepared kindergartners in Idaho City jumped from the 30% range to its current status with the introduction of the pre-K program, and has remained high since.

Using the same metric (more than 20 kindergartners), the schools with the lowest percentages of “ready to read” kindergartners were:

Brown, Lakeland – 17%
Silver Hills, Wallace – 19%
Bush, Idaho Falls – 19%
Aberdeen – 20%
Erickson, Idaho Falls – 22%
Van Buren, Caldwell – 25%
Hawthorne, Idaho Falls – 23%
Sacajawea, Caldwell – 23%
Hillcrest, American Falls – 25%
Valley, 25%
Roberts, Jefferson County – 25%
Washington, Caldwell – 25%

You may find a pdf copy of the data used for this post here. The spreadsheet is available upon request or can be downloaded from the ISDE website.

Idaho's SAT Math Scores Improve in 2014

The results of the 2014 SAT Schoolday administration were released last week. This was the third annual administration of the SAT to juniors statewide. The State Department of Education coordinates the administration, and juniors are offered the opportunity to take the exam at no cost.

Juniors must take a college entrance exam prior to the end of the 11th grade year in order to graduate from high school. If they have taken the SAT, ACT, or the Compass exam prior to the Schoolday administration, or plan to take one of the three exams prior to the end of junior year, students are not required to sit for the Schoolday exam.

SAT ACHIEVEMENT

For the purposes of this post, we considered only high school where 75 or more juniors sat for the SAT Schoolday exam, and only those schools in which 80% of juniors took the Schoolday exam. For the purpose of evaluating growth from the 2013 exam, we used only schools that tested 80% of juniors in both years. High schools in which less than 80% of students took the 2014 SAT were Blackfoot, Bonners Ferry, Burley, Canyon Ridge (Twin Falls), Jerome, Post Falls, South Fremont, and Wood River (Blaine County).

Following is a scattergram in which the percentage of students scoring above 500 (the College Board standard for college readiness) is the y-axis variable, and the percentage of free/reduced students is the x-axis variable.

The top scoring “large” high schools in 2014 were (% and average score):




SAT GROWTH

Almost 800 more students scored 500 or better in math on the 2014 Schoolday exam than did in 2013, a 4% gain. Though these are two different groups of juniors, there were almost 17,000 students in each tested group. The average scale score increased from 453 to 461.

We took a look at the high schools that made the most growth from 2013 to 2014. We eliminated the school that tested less than 80% of students in 2013 and/or in 2014. In addition to the schools listed as eliminated above, Kuna (76%), Payette (72%), and Weiser (73%) were eliminated from the comparison.

Here are the schools that made the most growth from 2013 to 2014:

LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENT STUDENTS

Limited English students, especially refugee/immigrant students who had been in the United States for a relatively short time, struggled with the ISAT, a multiple choice test that assessed relatively low level skills in a multiple choice format. As you can imagine, these students have an even more difficult time on the SAT, and will have similar issues with the Smarter Balanced Assessment next spring.

For example, here are the scoring patterns for a native – speaking student scoring 660 on the SAT math test, and a Limited English student.

                                 Q’s correct                         Q’s missed                Q’s skipped              Scale Score

Native Speaker              46                                             4                                 4                             660

LEP immigrant student    9                                            17                                28                          310

Research on language learning among LEP students shows that “a period of 5-7 years was required, on average, for immigrant students to approach grade norms in academic aspects of English.” (Cummins). Further, a 1995 article by Virginia Collier indicates that “In our studies we have found that in U.S. schools where all instruction is given through the second language(English) nonnative speakers of English withno schooling in their first language takes seven to ten years or more to reach age and grade-level norms of their native-speaking peers.”

On the old ISAT, LEP students were exempted from the language and reading subtests for one year. For the SAT, students can take another exam (ACT or Compass), or have their scores exempted from a school’s totals during their first three years in a United States school.

So how do LEP students’ scores compare? On average, Boise District LEP students who took the SAT scored a composite of 904, compared with the district average of 1426 (excluding LEP students). In math, LEP students scored an average of 330, compared with the district average of 486 (excluding LEP students).

As noted in a previous post, Borah High School has the largest number of LEP students in the state, primarily because the district’s Bridge program for immigrant newcomers is housed at Borah. Fifty-four (54) LEP students took the SAT at Borah. Those students’ average math score was 338. Five (5) (9%) scored above 500 in math, 0 in reading, 0 in writing.

So, what happens when the LEP student scores are taken out of Borah’s percentage of students scoring 500 or above?

Borah High School – Percent 500 or above

                                          With LEP               Without LEP

Reading                                 34%                           39%

Math                                      36%                           41%

Writing                                  21%                           23%

Other districts have high percentages of Limited English Proficient students, though probably not to the level of Borah with its Bridge program. We don’t know the extent of the effect on SAT performance, since the number of LEP tested students is not released by the state.

Student Enrollment in Idaho Schools, Part 1

Which Idaho school district with over 100 students has seen the largest percentage increase in enrollment since the dawn of the 21st century?

Meridian (or, by their new name, West Ada)? – Well, Meridian is first in numerical growth (over 11,000), but fifth in percentage growth. The state’s largest district has grown by 45% since 2001.

Nampa? – Nampa is now the state’s third largest district, with over 15,000 students, but is 8th in rate of growth, at 28%.

The fastest growing district in Idaho is the Vallivue District outside of Caldwell. Vallivue had 3888 students in 2001, and now has enrollment of 7565, according to State Department of Education enrollment statistics. That’s a rate of growth since 2001 of 95%.

Fastest Growing Districts

School districts of over 100 students that have grown by 20% (with enrollment growth) since ’01 are:

1. Vallivue (3677) – 95%
2. Kuna (1961) – 62%
3. Middleton (1348) – 59%
4. Bonneville (3581) – 47%
5. Meridian (11237) – 45%
6. Madison (1176) – 29%
7. Jefferson County (1141) – 29%
8. Nampa (3272) – 28%
9. Teton (335) – 25%
10. Twin Falls (1696) – 25%
11. Kimberly (320) – 24%
12. Post Falls (1070) – 23%
13. Sugar-Salem (277) – 23%
14. Dietrich (41) – 21%

Note that much of the student population growth is in three areas of the state: the Treasure Valley (Meridian, Nampa, Kuna, Middleton, Caldwell), the Idaho Falls area (Madison, Jefferson County, Sugar-Salem, Bonneville, Teton), and the Magic Valley (Twin Falls, Kimberly, Dietrich).

Fastest Shrinking Districts

On the flip side, as of the 2013 – 14 school year, 29 school districts of over 100 students have lost more than 20% of their 2001 enrollment. The ten that have lost the highest percentage of enrollment are:

1. Culdesac – 58% (213 to 92)
2. Kootenai - 39.6% (288 to 174) 
3. South Lemhi – 38.8% (129 to 79)
4. Bruneau-Grandview – 37.6% (526 to 328) 
5. Nez Perce 37.2% (207 to 130) 
6. Mullan 36.7% (158 to 100) 
7. Council 34.8% (333 to 217) 
8. Cambridge 34.2% (193 to 127) 
9. Mackay 31.8% (258 to 176) 
10. Salmon 31.2% (1143 to 786) 

Note that these are all small (with the exception of Salmon), relatively isolated school districts, where the loss of such large percentages of student enrollment certainly has a detrimental effect upon operations.

The median Idaho district size in 2000-01 was 942. In 2013-14 the median size was 798. Eight of the 29 districts which lost more than 20% of their enrollment were larger than the statewide median in 2001:

1. Emmett (-20%) (2981 to 2382)
2. Payette (-20%) (1932 to 1582)
3. Priest River (-21.7%) (1515 to 1187)
4. Bear Lake (-28.5%) (1501 to 1073)
5. Orofino (-27.8%) (1419 to 1025)
6. Oneida County (-26%) (1153 to 853)
7. Salmon (-31.2%) (1143 to 786)
8. Soda Springs (-20.3%) (1060 to 845)

Of the 29 districts that lost more than 20% of their enrollment, 18 have opted for a 4-day school week, while 11 have remained with the traditional 5-day student week.

Trends Among Idaho's Largest Districts

To give you an idea of changing enrollment patterns among “large” Idaho districts, here are the ten with the largest student populations, in 2001 and 2013:

2001

1. Boise – 26442
2. Meridian – 25223
3. Pocatello – 12210
4. Nampa – 11772
5. Idaho Falls – 10648
6. Coeur d’Alene – 9083
7. Bonneville – 7568
8. Twin Falls – 6869
9. Caldwell – 5665
10. Cassia County - 5119

2013

1. Meridian – 36510 (+44.7%)
2. Boise – 25978 (-1.8%)
3. Nampa – 15044 (+27.8%)
4. Pocatello – 12565 (+2.9%)
5. Bonneville – 11149 (+47.3%)
6. Coeur d’Alene – 10284 (+13.2%)
7. Idaho Falls – 10263 (-3.6%)
8. Twin Falls – 8565 (+24.7%)
9. Vallivue – 7565 (+94.6%)
10. Caldwell – 6277 (+10.8%)

Note: The Boise District had lost about 6% of its enrollment
(about 1500 students) between 2001 and 2007 during the “move to the suburbs”; since then, the district has grown by about 1000 students.

Idaho’s student population grew by 18% between 2001 and 2013, from just over 246,000 students to just over 289,000. Idaho’s districts grew by just 10% during that period, from 245,000 to 270,000. Why the difference? In the next post, data about the growth of charter schools in the state of Idaho.