WEST SPRINGFIELD – In reviewing data from the latest round of assessment scores, West Springfield Superintendent Michael Richard warns against attempting to make apples to apples comparisons.

The newest iteration of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing, utilizes new scoring and rating methods that are not compatible with previous years. That coupled with higher grades utilizing the old model as the transition takes place can cause confusion if results are lined up side by side.

Instead, he said, districts and parents should look at one set of figures as the key metric.

“For us it was about growth,” he said. “We’re always looking at growth and we were pretty consistent, relatively consistent with the state. We’re closer to the state than we have been in the past. In some areas, we’re slightly ahead of the state and in some areas slightly below, but not much of a deviation, which was encouraging.”

Richard and his administration are utilizing figures compiled by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education designed to aid districts in determining growth to assess the needs of the district moving forward.

“It’s the only consistent measure there I think,” Richard said. “You can’t compare achievement levels because those are all different, but the growth has allegedly remained the same, so we’re looking at those figures to help inform decisions around the students.

Richard said the district was especially pleased with its progress in grades 3-8 English language arts (ELA). Speaking more specifically, he said the early grades showed significant growth.

Fourteen percent of students in grades 3-8 showed “very high” growth in ELA while another 19 percent illustrated “high” growth. 55 percent of students showed at least moderate growth in ELA.

A challenge he noted, however, was the fact that the middle school levels plateaued.

“There are some high points for them, but the middle school data are such that they’re pretty level and we’re trying to identify why that is,” Richard said. “Kids are demonstrating growth early on in elementary school, then they hit grade 6 and I don’t know whether it’s the age or what, but we need to make some adjustments there.  Mr. [Peter] Gillan, the principal, and I will be sitting down to scrutinize the data to make sure we’re doing everything we can to affect the achievement for the kids.”

Richard also noted “great growth” in grade 10 ELA and “nice growth” in grade 8 ELA scores.

Examining math scores, said he was especially pleased with growth rates in grade 4.

“Seventy-five percent of kids are making moderate to very high growth, which is huge,” he said. “We attribute that to what we call AVMR – Advantage Math Recovery. It’s a program we use at the elementary level that really drives home some foundational skills for kids. We expect that as the kids who have been exposed to AVMR and transition up, they’ll carry those skills with them.”

Addressing sub-groups such as English language learners (ELL) and special education, Richard said it was a mixed bag.

In the special education sector, Richard said the district saw “tremendous growth.” The district has been moving toward an inclusion model in which students are kept in classrooms instead of pulled out as well as a “co-teaching” model.

“It’s not 100 percent true in all grades, but we saw significant growth overall in special education, which we found, ” he said. “We don’t know what to attribute it to yet, but we like to think it has something to do with the inclusion model and the co-taught model.”

ELL at the high school experienced a dip in performance.

“Based on our early data reviews, it is based in some late arrivals – students coming to us with little recent formal education and having only been with us for a little over a year,” he said. “Those kids who are 13 months in take the test and it counts. Their basic English skills are not where we’d like them to be.”

Richard said the overall encouraging statistics may be attributed to the district’s focus has been on “rigor.”

He explained, “We’re trying to match our instruction to what the state expects students to know. Rigor is about finding the right teaching for the kids – not about making things harder, but about making things more challenging – and that’s important for us.”

The district, he said, has also made teaching “transferable skills” a priority.

“We talk about teaching math in different ways so you’re not just teaching number sense, but you’re teaching problem solving, so skills kids can use not just in science but in ELA,” he said. “Application of learning is important and we see that every day in real life in every job that’s being created that didn’t exist five or 10 years ago. It’s about learning a skill and being able to pull from different areas of your educational experiences.”

With this in mind, the district is planning to introduce more project-based learning.

“We do a lot of hands-on science,” Richard said. “We’re in conversations with the high school administration about rolling out more project-based learning so those kids can be ready for the next stage of their lives … We don’t need to just teach you math or science, but we’re teaching you how to use those skills in different ways so you can understand them and apply your learning.”