ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle and
QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
Students in Lincoln County School District and around Oregon are still struggling to regain ground in their grasp of key subjects three years after returning to normal school routines following the Covid pandemic.
Results released by the state Wednesday from statewide assessment tests in English language arts, math and science last spring show that across subjects, grades and districts, students are still about 10 percentage points behind pre-pandemic achievement levels.
“This isn’t normal. This is not where we want to be by any stretch of the imagination,” said Charlene Williams, director of the Oregon Department of Education, at a news conference Wednesday.
Students in grades 3-8 and 11 are tested in math and English, and depending on their grades, science. Along with things like graduation rates, these results are one of the only statewide, annual touchpoints to understand the health of Oregon’s school system.
And what that snapshot shows isn’t great.
Less than half of all students tested statewide are proficient in English language arts. Less than a third are proficient in math. And slightly over a quarter of tested students are proficient in science.
Local tests below state’s
If Oregon’s statewide test results were considered poor, the scores by Lincoln County School District students were even worse. Although results varied across individual schools, in 16 out of 17 categories and grades, local students performed worse on the tests than the statewide average. Results showed:
- Lincoln County students in all seven grades tested were substantially below the statewide proficiency average in math;
- Students in grades three through eight were substantially below the statewide average in English. The lone bright spot there, was that 48 percent of local 11th-graders showed proficiency in English, compared with 45 percent statewide, according to the numbers released Wednesday; and
- Lincoln County fifth- and eighth-graders were substantially below the statewide average in Science, while 31 percent of 11th graders were proficient compared with a statewide average of 32 percent.
But the district continued to show that it can meet or beat the statewide average for on-time graduation from its four traditional high schools and one charter school. In 2023:
- Newport High School graduated 140 seniors with 21 dropouts, for an 82 percent graduation rate;
- Taft High School in Lincoln City graduated 107 seniors with eight dropouts, for a 92 percent graduation rate;
- Toledo High graduated 45 seniors with eight dropouts for an 80 percent rate;
- Waldport High graduated 31 seniors with one dropout for a 97 percent rate; and
- Eddyville Charter School graduated all 15 of its seniors for a 100 percent rate.
If there were bright spots among Lincoln County schools, it was from the two schools in Waldport.
Crestview Heights School was at or above the districtwide average for third- through fifth-grade math, English and science and better than the statewide average in math and English in the fifth and sixth grades.
While just at 16 percent proficient for 11th-grade math, 70 percent of Waldport High’s 11th-graders were proficient in English compared with a 45 percent statewide average, and 44 percent were proficient in Science, compared with a 32 percent statewide average.
District officials were not available for interiews Thursday, but director of secondary education Aaron Belloni said in an emailed statement that the district constantly reviews data and because of that has provided more classroom coaching this fall.
“Additionally, we are increasing progress monitoring and interim assessments to provide more immediate instructional changes,” Belloni said in a statement. “LCSD is also developing a cohort trend map to follow students and content standards through grade levels. This map will allow us to better pinpoint learning gaps, identify critical instructional needs and better ensure college and career prerequisite skills are not missed.”
Belloni said another key to improving test scores is continuing to work with staff, students and families on ways to increase attendance and engagement.
Officials react
In response to the data on Wednesday, Williams and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said the state would double down on investments in early literacy, summer and afterschool programs and improve data collection and accountability measures to better understand what is driving the declines.
Oregon’s results reflect a nationwide trend showing student learning was negatively affected by the pandemic, which included more than a year of online classes. But Oregon is not rebounding like neighboring Washington, California and many other states, according to an analysis by researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities.
“While this reality is not unique to our state, Oregon is still struggling to catch up with its peers nationally,” said Andrea Lockard, director of assessment and student reporting for the state education department.
In a news release, Kotek said she was “not satisfied by this year’s numbers.” Kotek championed in 2023 a $120 million investment in early literacy to start moving the needle on student reading proficiency. Schools received the money in March and have begun investing in teacher training, reading coaches and curricula that aligns with the state’s approved materials list.
An average of 88 percent of eligible students participated in the annual assessment tests, called Smarter Balanced tests.
The tests are required by state and federal law, although Oregon allows parents to opt their children out of testing. Prior to the pandemic, participation in the tests was closer to 95 percent. Students were not required to take the tests in 2020 and the state education department scaled back testing in 2021.
On average across the seven grades tested in spring of 2024, student proficiency in English language arts declined by half a percentage point, increased by about half a percentage point in math and decreased about two-thirds of a percentage point in science compared with the 2023 results.
Average proficiency in all subjects among Oregon students remains, on average, about 10 percentage points below 2019 proficiency levels.
Low participation
Results among the state’s 11th graders paint a grim picture of students’ grasp of core subjects as they near the end of their K-12 education. But participation in the tests among 11th graders remains so low that Oregon education officials encourage the public not to read into the data.
About 30 percent of Oregon 11th graders opted out of testing in 2024, leaving the state with little information about how well these soon-to-be graduates understand key concepts in English, math and science.
Farley, director of assessment, said the agency is hearing that many high schoolers are prioritizing college entrance exams and choosing not to take state assessments, despite the state’s efforts to ensure the testing schedule does not disrupt other testing schedules.
Data from the 70 percent of 11th graders who participated shows many teens are struggling with English language arts skills.
Williams and Dan Farley, assistant superintendent of research, emphasized the importance of growing the number of 11th graders who participate in the tests so state officials know how to meet student needs.
“Assessment is magic. It brings internal cognitive functions into the light, where educators can respond to them,” Farley said at the news conference.
But Williams and Farley also talked at length about the limits of testing. The state launched a new student survey for all testing grades this year that gauges students’ access to resources, learning opportunities and content, along with their sense of belonging. State officials hope that by combining testing results and survey results, they can begin to understand what types of investments and interventions would be most effective in each subject, grade, school and district.
Since the 2022-23 school year, there have been some marginal improvements in fifth-, seventh- and eighth-grade math achievement. Education department officials said teachers in the districts where students improved reported having more time to collaborate with one another, the ability to connect math lessons to other school subjects such as science and social studies, and had success focusing on conceptual rather than just rote, or systematic, learning.
But the rate of proficiency also changed dramatically when broken down by socioeconomic groups.
Although there were some gains in individual groups, fewer students experiencing poverty, English language learners and students with disabilities showed test results as proficient compared to statewide averages. The same was true for students who are Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or American Indian/Alaska Native.
- Natalie Pate of Oregon Public Broadcasting also contributed to this report
- Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.
The Oregonian/OregonLive is providing all the statewide and local district and school data on its website here.