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Houghton outpacing state on M-STEP, SAT

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Anders Hill, principal of Houghton Elementary School, speaks about the school’s M-STEP scores at Monday’s Houghton-Portage Township Schools Board meeting Monday. The district saw gains over 2017 at most levels.

HOUGHTON — Houghton-Portage Township Schools posted improvements at most levels on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP) and SAT tests from 2017. At the same time, they continued to be above the state average.

“I’m really proud of the way our kids performed,” said Houghton Elementary School Principal Anders Hill. “It’s really not something we teach to; it’s just kind of an indicator of where we are. We know we have great teachers and great students that are doing really well.”

The M-STEP tests, given online, have been used as standardized tests in the state since 2015.

Students are tested in reading and math from third to eighth grades. Fifth, eighth and 11th grades also take a social studies test.

In 11th grade, students take an SAT test, which the state also uses to measure reading and math performance.

The percentage of students tested at advanced or proficient levels outpaced the state at all levels.

Students improved on the previous year’s students’ marks in third, fourth and sixth grades in reading and in all but seventh grade in math. Social studies improved in fifth and 11th grades.

Looking at the fourth-grade math score, Hill noted 84.5 percent of students had attained proficiency, versus 42 percent statewide and 53 percent in the Copper Country Intermediate School District (which includes the Houghton scores.) Last year’s fourth grade had attained 77.9 percent.

Hill also mentioned drops in reading and social studies at the fifth-grade level — from 77.3 percent to 65.1 percent in reading, and 49.5 percent to 42.1 percent in social studies.

The tests change each year, making it difficult to make year-to-year comparisons. Tests also vary from student to student — getting harder when students answer a question correctly, or getting easier following an incorrect answer.

“All those things really play into making it really difficult to compare this year’s scores to last year,” he said.

Middle School Principal Julie Filpus said state averages had been consistent, and Houghton averages somewhat so, going back to 2011. That includes three years of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), the precursor to the M-STEP.

One feature of MEAP she misses is the item analysis, where teachers and administrators could see how students performed on each question.

“With the computer-adaptive models, that information is no longer available to us,” she said.

Social studies percentages tend to rise as students grow older; that trend reverses with reading and math scores, which were at 50.4 percent and 44.6 percent, compared to 72.4 and 79.7 in third grade.

The eighth-grade students often struggle with motivation on the test, Filpus said. That could change this year, when the state will start administering the PSAT for students in eighth through 10th grades.

“We’re happy for the change, and look forward to seeing how that will impact students,” she said.

In 11th grade, students averaged an 1141.8 on the SAT, the highest average in the U.P., said High School Principal Cole Klein. That was up 10 points from 2017, and well above the 1000.1 statewide average.

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