Education in West Virginia has many things that need fixing in order to help our students and teachers be more efficient during their time in the classroom. One outstanding and continuously declining issue is that of standardized test scores.
While some schools in the state show proficiency in their testing, a majority of schools throughout all grade levels continue to produce poorly scored test results. The WV Board of Education released the results of the state-wide scores from the 2017-18 academic year in September 2018. According to this story from Ryan Quinn of the Charleston Gazette-Mail, only around 37 percent of students from public schools in West Virginia earned a proficient score in Mathematics. Only 45 percent of those same public-school students met the requirement for the English section. Along with the testing results, the WVBOE also released their new “balanced scorecard” which shows the subgroups of all grade levels and whether or not they are meeting the standards in not only testing but also attendance and even behavior for the middle and elementary level.
About one year later, Quinn reported the same exact story for the Charleston Gazette-Mail with the 2018-19 testing scores, reporting that the number of students meeting proficient scores for Math and English had only risen by one percent each. Science proficiency actually showed a decline, though the percentage wasn’t reported state-wide. Quinn includes the scores for Kanawha and Putnam counties in his article, however.
Mitch Carmichael, President of the West Virginia Senate, was quoted in an interview with Morgantown’s own, Hoppy Kercheval from WVMetroNews, saying, “Our students enter in at fourth grade the first time they’re tested, 37th or 38th in the nation—which is not good, but it’s not horrible. By the time they’re in the 8th grade, they’re 46th or 47th, and then upon 11th-grade testing, they’re near last.”
It may not be fully clear as to why the test scores from the public schools in West Virginia continue to show a lack of proficiency from students in the state. What is clear, however, is the fact that something needs to be done in order to identify what is happening whether it be a lack of motivation among students or lack of teachers that can prepare the students to perform better on their tests. Certainly, some things like attendance can be attributed to the preparedness of students, which is a good place to start to search for a solution.
Almost Heaven, Almost Hell 