Test scores improve

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

May 20, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

The Bemidji School District's eigth-grade testing scores are in, and the results are encouraging, Director of Instruction Dave Bucher told the Bemidji School Board Monday.

Even with the higher standard this year of needing 75 percent correct on the tests to pass, 75 percent of the 355 eighth-graders taking the reading test passed, and 84 percent of the 354 students taking the mat test passed, Bucher said.

Comparatively, 68 percent of last year's eighth-graders passed the reading test at the required 70 percent correct level, and 73 percent passed the math test.

The eighth-graders took the tests in April, and this year's ninth-graders who failed last year took the tests again in January.

According to state legislation passed two years ago, Minnesota students are now required to pass basic reading and math tests in order to receive a diploma from any state public school.

This leaves 88 students who did not pass the reading test this year in the district, and 57 students who did not pass the math test -- all of whom will have to pass the tests in the next four years before being awarded a diploma.

Last year, the district's eighth-graders were tested using Minnesota's Basic Requirement Test. This year, as the district needed to use the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills to report Title I scores, it used that test systemwide. However, Bucher said next year the district will again use the Basic Requirement Test because the 1997 Legislature has required every school to use it.

"We're feeling pretty good about the eighth and ninth grade tests," he said. "With the increase in the standard, I feel we did very well this year."

Bucher reported that the ninth-graders who failed last year's test and tested again this year also did well. Out of the 128 ninth-graders taking the reading test this year, 43 percent of them passed, and of the 115 students taking the math test, 43 percent passed as well.

This essentially leaves 73 ninth-graders who need to pass the reading test, and 66 who need to pass the math test, in the next three years to graduate, Bucher said. And of those, about 20-25 who did not pass the reading test are special education students, and 25-30 of the students not passing the math test are special education students.

The ninth-graders testing again this year were required by the state to take the Minnesota Basic Requirement Tests.

According to Bucher, remedial lessons in reading and math provided for those who failed the test last year seemed to pay off, and remedial classes -- funded by the state -- will be offered again this summer and next year for the eighth- or ninth-graders failing this year.

Another change in the testing, Bucher said, was that the standard needing to be correct will remain at 75 percent for next year's testing. Previously, the law had required the standards to be increased to 80 percent next year, but it was changed by this year's Legislature.

"The testing is a lot like a fireworks demonstration," he said of the tests. "There is a lot of preparation by experts before the show, and there's a lot of noise when the results come out. People 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the ones that sizzle, and 'boo' at the ones that fizzle. Then afterward, people sit and wonder why some of them fizzled."