In the following post you will see a comparison on the percent of students who were deemed proficient on the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP) test from 2007 to 2012. The MEAP test is a standardized test given each fall to students in grades three through nine on various subjects. Beginning in 2011, the Michigan Department of Education (MDOE) adopted more rigorous cut scores for the MEAP tests. These scores represented career and college ready standards, according to the MDOE. With the new cut scores, students need to have about 65 percent of the answers correct, while in the past that cutoff was about 39 percent. Percentage of students deemed proficient in the years prior to 2011 were not adjusted in accordance with the new cut scores.
In this post, data for the Detroit City School District (commonly known as the Detroit Public Schools), the three tri-county intermediate school districts (i.e., Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland), and the State of Michigan is presented. Since the Michigan Department of Education does not provide county averages, averages of the percent of proficient students from the intermediate school districts were used.
The Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency (Wayne RESA) includes 34 school districts in Wayne County; Detroit Public Schools is one of these districts. The Macomb Intermediate School District (Macomb ISD) represents 21 school districts in Macomb County, and Oakland Schools represents 28 school districts.
When reviewing the numbers, note that the percent of proficient students is the percent of students who were deemed either “advanced” or “proficient” on that portion of the test.
Throughout this post you will see:
The above chart shows that the percent of third-graders in the Detroit City School District this year who were deemed proficient on the math section of the MEAP test is the highest it has been in the last five years. For 2012, 15.7 percent of the Detroit third-graders were deemed proficient, compared to the 9.7 percent who were deemed proficient for 2011. While there was an increase, the number of students in the Detroit City School District who were deemed proficient on this portion of the MEAP was about 17 percent below the average for all schools in the Wayne County RESA district and 25 percent below the state average in 2012.
The average percent of third-graders deemed proficient in math in the Oakland Schools district has been consistently higher than the Detroit, Wayne, Macomb, and state percentages since 2007.
For the Detroit City School District, the percent of third-graders deemed proficient on the reading portion of the MEAP test for this academic year increased from last year, 33 percent to 43 percent. The 43 percent was only .6 percent below the Detroit district’s highest percent of third-graders deemed proficient on this portion of the MEAP; in 2009 43.6 percent of third-graders met or exceeded the standards. Despite the increase, Detroit was still below averages for the state and tri-county area. Oakland Schools students had the highest averages across all years. In 2012, Oakland Schools reached its highest average on this portion of the test in the six years listed with 75 percent of third-graders being proficient.
The percent of fourth grade students in the Detroit City School District who were deemed proficient on the math portion of the MEAP test increased from 11.4 percent last year to 17.8 percent this year. This increasing trend was also seen at with the Wayne RESA, the Macomb ISD and at the state level. While the Detroit City School District saw the largest increase in the percent of proficient students from 2011 to 2012 (a 6.4 percent increase), the Wayne RESA and the state both saw a 5 percent increase. The Macomb ISD saw a 4 percent increase.
From 2010 to 2012 Oakland Schools scores remained fairly consistent. In 2010 53.5 percent of the fourth-grader were proficient, in 2011 54 percent were proficient and in 2012 53 were proficient.
Again, the percent of students in the Detroit City School District who were deemed proficient on the reading portion of the fourth grade MEAP test increased in recent years. In 2010, 35.7 percent of fourth graders were proficient; that increased to 38 percent in 2011 and 41 percent in 2012.
From 2011 to 2012 both the Wayne RESA and Macomb ISD decreased by 1 percent while Oakland Schools increased by 1 percent.
Fourth and seventh grade students are tested on their writing skills on the MEAP. While the other sections of the test have data from 2007-2012, there were only data available from 2010-2012 for the writing portion of the test. The writing portion of the MEAP exam was modified prior to the 2010-2011 school year, making scores from previous years incomparable.
For all three years presented, the percent of students deemed proficient in the Detroit City School District has remained at or near 20 percent; this is below the state and tri-county school district averages. The tri-county area school district and the averages never reached 60 percent for proficiency. Oakland Schools came the closest to this in 2010 and 2012 though; both years the average percent of proficient students was 58 percent. The highest the state average reached was 47.2 percent in 2010. The year 2010 was also the highest percent of proficiency for fourth-graders on this test for the Wayne RESA and Macomb ISD. The Wayne RESA had 38.5 percent of students show proficiency, and the Macomb ISD had 50 percent.
For all the districts examined, there was an increase in the percent of fifth grade students who were deemed proficient on their math portion of the MEAP from 2011 to 2012. The Detroit City School District saw about a 5.5 percent increase, to 17 percent of students deemed proficient at the fifth grade level in 2012. The Macomb ISD and the Wayne RESA each saw a 7 percent increase from the previous year; while Oakland Schools increased about 5 percent.
For all districts considered, there was an increase in fifth-graders deemed proficient in reading on the MEAP tests from 2007 to 2012. Detroit City School District had the largest increase, from 29.1 percent in 2007 to 45 percent in 2012. Despite this increase, Detroit still remains behind the other tri-county district and the state in the percentage of students deemed proficient.
The percent of students deemed proficient on the science portion of the fifth grade MEAP test decreased in Detroit, at the tri-county level, and at the state level from 2010 to 2012. While Oakland Schools still had a higher percent of students deemed proficient than the state average, there was an overall 4 percent decrease from 2011 to 2012. For the Detroit City School District there was a 1 percent decrease from 2011 to 2012; in 2011, 3 percent of the students were proficient on this section of the test and in 2012, 2 percent were proficient.
The year 2008 had the highest percent of proficient students for all districts considered in this post, except the Detroit City School District. In 2008, the Wayne RESA had 11.8 percent of the students deemed proficient, the Macomb ISD had 17.4 percent, Oakland Schools had 26.4 percent and the state had 18.8 percent of the fifth-graders deemed proficient.
Since the 2008-09 school year, the Detroit schools have remained fairly consistent in the percent of sixth grade students who earned a proficient level on the math portion of the test. The percent of proficient students has ranged from 11.5 to 13.6, gradually increasing from year to year. The 13.6 percent in the 2012-2013 school year is a 5.5 percent increase from the number of students who earned a proficiency level in 2007.
While the Detroit schools have remained fairly consistent in the percent of proficient students on this portion of the test, the district still remains far below the other averages in the tri-county area and the state average. In 2012, the Wayne RESA was the closest to Detroit’s average; the Detroit City School District had an average of 13.6 percent of proficient students while the Wayne RESA had 31 percent. For this same year Oakland Schools had 54 percent proficient students, the Macomb ISD had 41 percent and the state had 40.2 percent.
While there was a significant increase in the percent of sixth grade students deemed proficient on the reading portion of the MEAP test in 2009 for the Detroit City School District, that number decreased in 2010. From 2011 to 2012, the average percent of proficient students remained consistent for the state, the Macomb ISD and Oakland Schools. The Wayne RESA and the Detroit City School District experienced an increase in the average percent of proficient students during this same time period.
In 2011 the Detroit City School District had a 37.6 percent proficiency level, and in 2012 that rose to 45 percent. The Wayne RESA saw a smaller increase in the same time period; from 2011 to 2012 the percent of proficient students rose from 55 to 59 percent.
The percent of proficient sixth-graders on the social studies portion of the MEAP increased from 2011 to 2012 for Oakland Schools and the state, and remained consistent for the Detroit City School District, the Wayne RESA and the Macomb ISD; for each domain, the percentages in 2012 are not high as they were in 2007. The only exception is the Detroit City School District. In 2007, 8.2 percent of the sixth-graders were proficient on the social studies portion of the exam, and in 2012, 8.8 percent were proficient.
In next week’s post we will continue to examine and compare MEAP results for the Detroit City School District, the Wayne RESA, the Macomb ISD, Oakland Schools and the state. The upcoming charts will focus on the results from the seventh through ninth grade students in these districts.