Iowa City school officials happy with test scores

IOWA CITY - Iowa City school district students continue to outperform their peers nationally on standardized tests, but a few grades fell short of state goals in some subjects, information released by the district Friday shows.

Missing the state targets will likely keep the district designated as “in need of assistance” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said Pam Ehly, the district's director of instruction. It will be several months before the district knows that for sure, and whether any schools will be added or taken off the schools in need of assistance list.

Overall, however, the results from the tests, taken last fall, show high achievement and are comparable to previous years, district officials said.

“Relatively speaking, our students do really quite well,” Ehly said.

Students were tested in reading comprehension, language, math, social studies and science.

Each grade as a whole scored higher than the national average in every subject.

Test Data

The national percentile ranks ranged from a low of 71 in eighth-grade social studies to a high of 97 in ninth-grade science. That means the district's eighth graders, on average, did better than 71 percent of students nationally who took the same test.

Percentile Ranks

The district fell short of state goals, however, in reading in third, sixth and seventh grades and math in third grade.

State Goals

Ehly said she thought the district's results were especially good news because they continue to score well even as the district becomes more diverse, and certain groups of students - like minorities and those from low-income families - tend to not perform as well on standardized tests.

Data shows that students who are new to the district score, on the whole, much lower than those who have been in the district at least two years. For example, fourth graders who just moved to the district scored in the 56th percentile in reading, compared with the 89th percentile for those who attended third and fourth grade in the district.

Ic Schools