By WILLIAM M. HARTNETT and KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
The Palm Beach Post's analysis of standardized test scores measured the relationship between achievement and student wealth throughout the state.
The chart at right illustrates a portion of the results.
The Post plotted Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores of 505 middle and 1,559 elementary schools against the percentage of students receiving free and reduced price meals at each school.
This chart plots how the eighth-grade reading test score at each middle school relates to its free and reduced price meal rate.
The diagonal line represents the average score at any given economic level. The farther above or below the line a school appears, the better, or worse, it did compared to schools with a similar economic profile.
For example, Martin County's Indiantown Middle had about 90 percent of its students on free and reduced price lunch last year and 38 percent of its eighth-graders scoring at or above level three on the FCAT reading test. Schools with similar poverty rates averaged only 24 percent at or above level three.
The Post's analysis found trends similar to those illustrated in this chart with eighth-grade math, fifth-grade math and fourth-grade reading scores. The analysis did not include high school scores because students at that age often do not register for free lunches because of a perceived stigma. Generally speaking, the younger the student, the more accurately free and reduced lunch rates measure the percentage of poor families at a school.
For this reason, several combination junior/senior high schools and a handful of K-12 schools across the state were not included in the study.
The analysis also did not include scores of students who were not at the same school in the fall and spring, students who have taken fewer than two years of English as a second language or some students in Exceptional Student Education programs.
The Post's analysis is not intended to be a complete portrait of school quality. No single statistical measure can do that. It merely offers another view of student and teacher performance - one that accounts for family income.
Copyright 2001 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
December 16, 2001 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 10A
LENGTH: 380 words