What's New on School Facts Jax: 2013 Third grade reading and math performance
5/29/2013
The Florida Department of Education recently released the first wave of 2013 FCAT 2.0 results, including Reading and Mathematics results for third grade, and writing results for all tested grades. In general, Duval County improved from last year in third grade reading and remained the same as last year on third grade mathematics. (For full overview of results, see here.)
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In the visualizations below, we take a closer look at how Duval County performed relative to other districts statewide and how each school within Duval County performed as well. By using the tabs across the top of the visualizations you can explore how Duval County performed relative to other districts in the state in terms of overall performance of third grade students (Tab 1) and changes in student performance from last year (Tab 2). At the school level, you can also compare how each school serving third graders within DCPS did in terms of overall performance (Tab 3) and changes from last year (Tab 4).
A couple of things to know to help you explore the visualizations:
- Each visualization is plotted by performance/gains in reading across the bottom and performance/gains in math up the side. The further to the right a school/district is, the better they performed in reading. The higher up a school/district is, the better they performed in math.
- The size of the symbols represents the number of 3rd graders tested in each district or school. This provides an easy visual reference to help compare DCPS to other comparably large districts, or to compare performance of larger vs. smaller schools within the district.
- The color of the symbols represents a simple comparison of whether districts/schools have a relatively higher or lower percentage of students eligible for FRL services.* Red symbols represent districts/schools with over 50% of students eligible, blue symbols represent those with under 50% eligible.
*Note: FRL estimates used here for district and schools are based on 2011-2012 reports (the most recent publicly available) and may have changed in the 2012-2013 year.
All of this is designed to help put the performance results in a little more context. So what does it tell us? Below are a few key findings that jump out from each visualization:
Tab 1: All Districts (Overall Performance)
- DCPS performed similarly to other large districts serving at least 10,000 3rd graders or more. In fact, all large districts of this size performed within 3 points of each other in terms of students performing at or above grade level in reading, and within 8 points of each other for student performance in math.
- Among just the large districts, two performed slightly better in reading than DCPS (Hillsborough and Orange), and three performed slightly worse (Miami, Broward, and Palm Beach).
- Among just the large districts, four performed slightly better in math than DCPS (Miami, Broward, Orange and Palm Beach), and one performed slightly worse (Hillsborough).
Tab 2: All Districts (1-Year Gains)
- Among just the large districts, DCPS had the largest gain in reading performance (4 points), followed by Orange County (2 points).
Tab 3: DCPS Schools (Overall Performance)
- Schools with less than 50% of students eligible for FRL tended to have a the highest percentages of students performing at or above grade level in both reading and math.
- Jacksonville Beach Elementary had the highest percentage of students performing at or above grade level both in reading (95%) and math (93%).
- Hyde Park Elementary had the lowest percentage of students at or above grade level in reading (19%), and Smart Pope Livingston Elementary had the lowest percentage in math (17%).
Tab 4: DCPS Schools (1-Year Gains)
- Among the schools with the greatest gains both in Reading and Math, three were small charter schools with less than 50% of students eligible for FRL (Tiger Academy, Somerset Academy, River City Science Elementary Academy) and two were traditional schools with over 50% of students eligible for FRL (Garden City Elementary and Pickett Elementary).
- John E. Ford K-8 had the largest single year drops in students performing at or above grade level in both reading (-29) and math (-32).
These are just some of the new perspectives on this data that we can find when we look at it in context this way, explore the visualizations in the tabs below to see what else you can learn that might help us better support continued improvement in DCPS.