BTO Success Story: Graphing Student Scores Yields Significant Improvements At Gililland Middle School

One of the ways that successful schools achieve better than expected academic results is by using data to increase each student’s achievement. During the 2007-2008 school year, Gililland Middle School students for the first time took an active role in charting their progress, which resulted in outstanding increases in student test scores. Students are continuing to graph their goals and test results during the 2008-2009 academic year.

School Overview

Gililland Middle School is one of 59 Maricopa County schools participating in the Beat the Odds School Partners Program. Beat the Odds is a school-based initiative of the Center for the Future of Arizona designed to increase Arizona K-12 student achievement, especially in schools with low-income, minority student populations.

Gililland, which is part of the Tempe Elementary School District, serves 884 students in grades six through eight. Most of the students (75 percent) are eligible for the federal free and reduced price lunch program, an indicator of poverty. Nearly 50 percent of the students speak Spanish as their primary language.

One of the challenges that Gililland’s teachers faced until recently was that students didn’t know what their test scores meant. As a result, they weren’t engaged in the testing process. “They just knew they had to take the test,” sixth grade math teacher Laura Mendralla noted. Last year, students at the school for the first time graphed their math and reading goals and test results throughout the year. It transformed a hard-to-grasp concept — academic improvement — into a visual tool that created excitement in the classrooms as students repeatedly saw their progress.

Charting Student Success

Three times during the school year, Gililland students take the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) reading and math tests in the school’s computer lab. Before taking each test, students determine the score they want to achieve. The assessment is given on a computer, which immediately provides their test score. Students then plot their goal and their actual score on a graph and determine the score they want to achieve on the next test.

Rick Horvath, who has been Gililland’s principal since July 2006, said, “If the student is progressing, you’ll see a bar or line graph with the scores going up in a stair-step form. It is a very helpful tool in communicating to parents, especially Spanish-language and urban parents, how their child is doing. A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Increased Student Motivation

“What’s really beneficial,” Principal Horvath added, “is that students grasp their scores and are motivated to do better … especially if they want to take elective classes such as art or computers, instead of math or reading intervention classes.”

Mendralla, who has taught for five years at Gililland Middle School, agreed. “When they have to set test goals and graph their results, they take it more seriously,” she said. “The difference is remarkable.”

When Mendralla compared her 124 students’ spring 2008 math scores with those at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year, she found:

Even more remarkable was how much the scores increased. She said the average annual growth for a student is five to seven points. Fifty-seven percent of the students who increased their test scores improved by 11 to 20+ points. Another 19 percent of the students who improved increased their scores between 6 and 10 points (average to above-average growth).

“They get so excited when they meet or exceed their goals,” she said. “It motivates you, too, as a teacher.”

Rewarding Student Achievement

Students who improve their test scores are recognized individually in the classroom, and as a group at each grade level. They also are entitled to privileges at the school level, such as going to the front of the lunch line.

“The kids love it,” Principal Horvath said. “Kids stop me and teachers in the hallway to tell us that they increased their score by so much. The school loves it, too.”