Gov. Bush visits a St. Petersburg elementary school to celebrate students' test gains.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published May 11, 2004
[Times photo: James Borchuck]
Gov. Jeb Bush, left, works with fourth-grader Cynthia Villavicencio, 10, on a reading lesson during a visit Monday to North Shore Elementary School in St. Petersburg.
ST. PETERSBURG - Gov. Jeb Bush popped in Monday afternoon at North Shore Elementary to applaud the school's achievements on this year's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
After walking through the campus of red brick buildings and portable classrooms, he commended Cynthia Villavicencio, a 10-year-old who came to the United States from Cuba two years ago.
She was a poor reader of English last year. "All I could say was, "I don't speak English,"' she said.
Now, as a fourth-grader, she is reading much better than average. Her success was one of the reasons the governor came to the school.
Her great improvement is the exception in Pinellas. At most grade levels, students' averages were a tick or two better this year than last. Even at North Shore, the results were mixed. While third-grade reading scores were up, fourth-grade math scores were down.
Countywide, more than half of the students are reading at grade level or above through seventh grade. That is not true in the higher grades.
Only two Pinellas high schools - Palm Harbor University and East Lake - had more than half of their students reading at grade level. Others fared worse.
At Dixie Hollins High School, fewer than 1 in 5 ninth-graders could read at grade level.
Across the county, eighth-graders and above did substantially better in math and writing than in reading.
The largest discrepancies were among 10th-graders, where 39 percent were at or above grade level in reading, compared with 65 percent in math. In writing, 92 percent of 10th-graders scored at grade level.
Alex Epanchin, director of testing for Pinellas schools, said comparisons among elementary, middle and high school students are difficult because the cutoff for what the state deems "average" varies by grade.
The standard gets tougher in the higher grades. While a third-grader would have to achieve a mean reading score of 286 to be considered at grade level, a 10th-grader would have to score a 327.
Discrepancies in what the state considers proficient also differ by subject, Epanchin said. Writing is much easier to teach - at least according to the way the state assesses writing - than reading or math. The difference helps explains why 83 percent of Boca Ciega High School's 10th-graders can write at grade level while only 30 percent can read at grade level, Epanchin said.
Although the governor touted the fact that slightly more than half of Florida students in grades 3-10 are reading at or above grade level, this year's FCAT scores indicate that significant differences remain between schools in north and south Pinellas.
At Curlew Creek Elementary in Palm Harbor, 77 percent of the fourth-graders scored at grade level in reading and 75 percent were on grade level for math. But at Blanton Elementary in St. Petersburg, 46 percent were reading at grade level and 39 percent performed on grade level in math.
Among Blanton's challenges, which exist for many schools in St. Petersburg, are a high number of students who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, often an indicator of poverty, and many special education students.
"I would have liked to see a little more growth in math and reading, but considering the challenges we had, the teachers worked miracles," said Debi Turner, the school's principal.
One school that went against the trend in south Pinellas is Academy Prep, a small school of about 100 fifth- through eighth-graders. The school, with an average class size of 15, was built in a predominantly black neighborhood of St. Petersburg to help promising students rise from poverty.
This year, the students took a test similar to the FCAT and scored as well as the highest performing schools in the county.
In an effort to raise reading scores of secondary students, Bush promised more resources for middle school children through the Middle Grades Reform Act, which the House and the Senate approved last month.
"We have come a long way and will continue to focus on reading so our middle school and high school students will meet with the same success we have seen in the early grades," the governor told the gathering at North Shore.
Pinellas school superintendent Howard Hinesley thinks the increased attention will improve scores in the higher grades but cautioned that results will take time.
