Knight not satisfied with PACT results

DARLINGTON — Darlington County’s superintendent of education said she is not satisfied with the district’s results on the 2008 Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT).
“Overall, we see a gain, we see some improvement. However, I do not see the improvement we should be making,” Dr. Rainey Knight said.

District students in grades three through eight showed increases in 12 of 24 testing areas on the 2008 test with decreases in the remaining 12 areas.

In those six grades, 4,480 district students took the 2008 PACT, which measures student performance in English/language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.
Statewide, more than 300,000 public school students in grades three through eight were tested in the four subject areas.

“There’s a lot of work yet to be done,” Knight said. “I feel like we’re struggling a little bit in English/language arts.”

Scoring levels on the PACT are below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. Students meet state academic standards by scoring basic or above.
Statewide, students improved their performance on the 2008 test.

This was the last year the PACT will be administered to public school students in South Carolina.

PACT has been administered statewide since 1999, but will be replaced next year by a new standardized testing system — the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards or PASS. The new test will feature more detailed information on individual students and a faster turnaround on score reporting.

Knight said the new test will still include a significant portion of PACT material. “What I like about it is that we will get the results sooner, and there will be more information about each student,” she said.

A summary of the 2008 district PACT results follows:

Third grade

District third-graders showed declines in each subject area except science. In English/language arts, 79.9 percent of district third-graders met the minimum state standard scoring basic, proficient or advanced, down slightly from 80.3 percent in 2007.

In math, the percentage of third-graders scoring basic or above slipped from 76.9 percent in 2007 to 71.9 percent in 2008, while in social studies, the percentage meeting state standards declined from 86.4 percent to 83.0 percent on the 2008 test.

In science, third-graders showed a slight gain with 59.9 percent meeting the standard compared to 58.7 percent in 2007.

Fourth grade

District fourth-graders improved their performance in three of the four subject areas, math, science and social studies, but declined in English/language arts, where 72.9 percent met state standards compared to 77.2 percent the year before.

In math, 80.6 percent of fourth-graders met the state standard, up from 75.7 percent in 2007. In science, the percentage meeting the standard rose to 68.4 percent from 56.0 percent the year before. And in social studies, 75.0 percent met the standard versus 71.1 percent in 2007.

Fifth grade

The percentage of fifth-graders in the district meeting the minimum state standard on PACT decreased in three of the four subject areas.
In English/language arts, 69.4 percent met the standard compared to 70.5 percent in 2007. In math,  69.7 percent of district fifth-graders met the state minimum standard in 2008, down from 73.8 percent in 2007.

The percentage of fifth-graders meeting the state standard in science dropped from 60.7 percent in 2007 to 53.5 percent in 2008. And in social studies, 62.7 percent of fifth-graders met the standard, up from 2007’s 57.3 percent.

Sixth grade

Among district sixth-graders, 70.9 percent met the state standard in English/language arts, up from 64.9 percent in 2007. But the percentages meeting state standards in math, science and social studies in the sixth grade dropped.

In math, 72.6 percent met the standard, down from 76.4 percent in 2007, while in science, 41.1 percent met the standard, a decrease from 51.7 percent the year before. In social studies, the percentage meeting the state standard slipped from 74.9 percent in 2007 to 73.5 percent in 2008.

Seventh grade

District seventh-graders improved their performance in all four subject areas, with 67.1 percent meeting the minimum state standard in English/language arts, up from 63.4 percent in 2007, and 73.6 percent meeting the standard in math, up from 71.5 percent in 2007. In science, 64.7 percent met the state standard compared to 55.8 percent in 2007, and in social studies 49.1 percent met the standard in 2008, up from 46.5 percent the year before.

Eighth grade

Among district eighth-graders, 61.0 percent met the state standard in English/language arts, down from 64.3 percent in 2007. In math, 65.0 percent met the standard in 2008, up from 63.7 percent in 2007.

In science, 51.8 percent met the minimum standard, a decrease from 55.0 percent in 2007. And in social studies, 62.2 percent met the standard, up from 60.8 percent in 2007.