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Updated Sept. 4: Oregon school officials released updated performance ratings for public schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The ratings are based mainly on schools' reading and math test scores, but attendance and graduation rates also count. To get a passing grade, a school must get about 60 percent of students in every group, including low-income, minority and special education students, to pass the state tests.
Choose a district or county below to see the ratings. PLEASE NOTE: The search will go much faster if you choose one district or county at a time.
Post a comment | View comments (1)Oregon education officials released 2007-08 test score data for public schools this morning. Enter a school name in the Quick Search window, or choose Advanced Search to search multiple districts.
Sept. 25, 2007
Oregon has asked students to hit grade-level benchmarks on reading, writing and math tests since 1996.
For the 2006-2007 test year, under the No Child Left Behind law, Oregon had to check with a panel of teachers, professors, principals, business leaders and others to make sure that the tests were hard enough, but not too hard, in each grade.
Those groups decided Oregon's math and reading tests were too easy in elementary and early middle school, so they raised the passing score on state tests in grades three through seven.
On the flip side, they found the high school reading and math tests and the eighth grade math test were too hard, so they lowered the score a student must earn to pass those exams.
To allow for accurate comparisons in student achievement, state officials recalculated results from 2006 to show how students would have scored if the 2007 score cutoffs had been in place. The recalibrated 2006 scores are used in this news article and in all the charts that go with it.
Even with easier tests in place, high school students fared poorly on the state exams compared to elementary and middle school pupils.
High schools face a host of challenges, said Noor, the assistant superintendent for school improvement. Teachers are organized around subjects and departments, so it's harder to form teams around student learning, he said. A high school teacher typically teaches 150 students at a time, too many to build the close relationships with students and give all the extra help that teachers would like, others say. Oregon's math test, given near the end of 10th grade, covers concepts from algebra and statistics that some students aren't taught by 10th grade, Noor said.
"It's hard when the test only serves as a barometer for adults and is not tied to graduation or anything else that is meaningful for the kid at the moment," added Vicki Lukich , principal of Aloha High, where math scores were flat and reading scores dipped this year.
Still, she said, Aloha High teachers in every department work diligently to improve students' reading and writing. When students don't pass the tests in 10th grade --some because they are still learning English as a second language --teachers keep working with the students to gain more skills and pass on a retest. Aloha High holds drawings for $100 scholarships and a huge year-end party with platters of food for students who pass all the tests before they graduate.
"We want all of our students to graduate with a plan and graduate prepared to be successful," she says.
April 29, 2008
President Bush will honor a Prineville science teacher as National Teacher of the Year at a White House ceremony Wednesday, the first time in 35 years that an Oregon teacher has won the national title.
Michael Geisen clinched the top-teacher prize for his record of collaborating with fellow Crook County Middle School teachers to raise achievement across the 700-student school.
Michael Geisen, 35, teaches seventh-grade science at Crook County Middle School in PrinevilleTuesday, October 09, 2007
BETSY HAMMOND
The Oregonian
When teachers at Glencoe High in Hillsboro saw that fewer than half their students passed state tests in math and writing, they knew they needed to do something drastic.
Down came the walls dividing teacher from teacher, ending the practice that let them each cover their own material their own way.
Instead, every teacher in the math department helped hash out which skills they should spend more time on, which teacher had the most effective way to teach that topic, which questions they should all put on their tests. During intense weekly meetings, English teachers created shared reading tests, agreed on common terms for teaching writing, and designed longer, more demanding writing assignments.
The result? Students began zooming ahead. Glencoe's math scores shot up in 2006, and reading scores did the same this year.
When the state handed out grades to 1,119 public schools Monday, Glencoe was one of just eight large high schools to earn an "exceptional" rating.
"We really banded together as a team," says Glencoe English teacher Julie Keyantash. "It's been a cultural shift, and it's gotten us all really excited about teaching."
Across the state, many schools opened their report cards to learn their rating had changed from a year ago.
Twenty percent of schools earned a higher grade and nearly 20 percent earned a lower grade. That made it one of the most up-and-down years for school performance ratings in the eight years that schools have been graded by the state.
Middle schools were the stars this year, thanks in part to their improved reading, math and writing scores. One in three middle schools got a higher grade from the state this year, moving up from satisfactory to strong or from strong to exceptional.
But elementary schools got more mediocre grades than usual. About one-fifth of elementary schools saw their grades drop, and the result was that 40 percent of elementary schools were rated "satisfactory" or "low."
Alex Specht, a sophomore at Hillsboro's Glencoe High, listens as English teacher Julie Keyantash explains a writing assignment. Teamwork and high expectations among Glencoe English teachers helped the school earn an "exceptional" rating on its school report card issued Monday.July 1, 2008
Brent Crosson, once a rising star in the accounting division of the Oregon Department of Education, will serve two years in federal prison for stealing nearly $1 million in federal money meant for schools.
U.S. District Judge Garr King meted out the sentence Monday, turning aside a recommendation that the Salem father of two be imprisoned longer because he abused the trust placed in him to steward money on behalf of Oregon schoolchildren.
King noted that the 36-year-old accounting manager cooperated with investigators, repaid $750,000 of the $925,000 he stole and agreed to give up everything he owns, including proceeds from the sale of his sports car and his former home. He admitted his crime. And he will have to repay the rest of the money after he leaves prison, King said.
March 21, 2008
Six Oregon schools, including two elementary schools in Portland and the high school in Milton-Freewater, were named state champions at raising achievement among low-income and minority students Thursday.
It marks the fourth time that Oregon Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo has heralded schools that did the most in the state to close the achievement gap. Each winning school gets $3,000.
Aug. 4, 2008
More than 430 Oregon schools failed to reach federal performance targets this year, the worst showing in six years under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The poor showing was caused by falling test scores in middle schools and a higher bar for schools to jump this year, according to Tony Alpert, director of assessment and accountability for the Oregon Department of Education, which issued the ratings Monday.
State education officials today released revised data for dropout rates at 500 Oregon high schools and 200 school districts. You can search for school and district results below. Reduced or unchanged dropout rates are shown in green; increases are shown in red.
The federal No Child Left Behind law requires districts to report progress in teaching English to students with limited proficiency. New ratings were just released for Oregon.
June 20, 2008
Oregon students will have to pass state reading, math and writing tests, or prove they have the equivalent skills, to get a high school diploma, beginning with this fall's freshmen.
Thursday's unanimous decision by the Oregon Board of Education also requires students to give three speeches that meet state standards.
The new requirements --three years in the making --will set off a scramble to make sure students know the rules and that schools gain the resources and know-how to get far more students up to par on core academic skills.
Shopping for public schools in Oregon? Want to know how your current school stacks up? Look no further. We do the math on K-12 -- and translate it into plain English. Enter a school name in the Quick Search window, or choose Advanced Search to find the top scorers.
