Assessment results slightly improving for West Virginia students – WV MetroNews

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — There’s been slight improvement in overall math, English language arts (ELA) and science proficiency among West Virgnia’s public school students.

The state Board of Education received the 2023 Public School Assessment Results during its Wednesday meeting in Charleston.

Overall results show 44 percent of West Virginia students were proficient in ELA, which is a 2 percent increase over last year. In math, 35 percent were proficient compared to 33 percent in 2022. Science proficiency increased by 1 percent from 28 percent in 2022 to 29 percent in 2023.

Vaughn Rhudy, director of the WVDE Office of Assessment, presented the results to the board and said the state remains below pre-pandemic levels.

“We did make some improvements. They’re small improvements in all three of our content areas from 2022. We’re not quite back up to the 2019 level, but you can see that we’re making some progress, so that is good news,” he said.

Rhudy said about 97 percent of students were tested. State BOE President Paul Hardesty applauded the high participation rate.

“The fact that we’re testing close to 97 percent of all the kids in public education, that needs to have an asterisk beside it somewhere in this report given the facts of all of our children that have special needs and broken homes,” Hardesty said. “I’m encouraged by some of the things we’re seeing — slow progress, but yet progress nonetheless.”

Seventh grade ELA was the only grade level that saw a drop, according to the results. The percentage of proficiency decreased from 41 percent in 2022 to 39 percent in 2023.

BOE member Debra Sullivan said students in grades 3-8 should be given a closer look so by the time they get to 11th grade, there’s improvement when they take college admissions tests.

“You’ve got to wonder, and you look at individual schools and how they’re doing in their grade schools and their middle schools and then you look at their junior year and they’re way down, is it motivation rather than ability or achievement?” Sullivan asked.

Third grade math saw the greatest improvement of 6-percentage points from 46 percent proficient in 2022 to 52 percent proficient in 2023. This also represented a 1 percent increase over pre-pandemic performance in 2019.

“That’s wonderful,” Sullivan said of those third-grade results. “I’m confident that individual school principals, teachers, superintendents will be looking at that because any of us who have worked with children know very well that this year’s class of fifth graders is not the same as last year’s fifth graders, so we really need to look at cohorts.”

State Schools Superintendent Michele Blatt said in a news release she was encouraged by the findings.

“The hard work remains ahead of us, but we know that our collective efforts to support effective teaching strategies, innovation and increased resources will be useful in increasing proficiency among all students,” she said.