While Seattle Public Schools students performed better than the year before in most areas that the district has identified as critical, the improvements are too slow for officials to realistically believe they will meet the goals of their strategic plan by 2013, its final year.
Seattle schools improved in almost all measurement categories last year, but the gains were small enough that the district is planning to scale back its achievement goals, officials said Tuesday.
The announcement came during a presentation of Seattle Public Schools' annual scorecard, which compiles districtwide and school-by-school reports of test scores, graduation rates and attendance numbers, among other data.
While this year's scorecard showed the district made improvement toward 18 of its 23 goals last year, officials acknowledged the progress was too small for all but three of those goals to be achieved by 2013, the year targeted by a strategic plan adopted in 2007.
Meanwhile, the scorecard made clear that while Seattle students overall continue to improve — and to outperform students in other parts of the state — there remains a large gap between the achievement of students in wealthy neighborhoods and those in poorer areas.
In some subjects, the percentage of students on free or reduced-price lunch who pass the state tests is half that of other students. A similar gap exists between students of color and white students. While the district has made it a priority to reduce the gap, it continues to exist and in some cases is widening, according to the data.
"We are seeing some gains, but it's not enough," Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield said, summing up the scorecard. "And, frankly, we're not on track to meet our goals."
Enfield's presentation at Wing Luke Museum prompted a standing ovation from the crowd, which included city officials like Mayor Mike McGinn, district leaders like School Board President Steve Sundquist and representatives from various community and education organizations.
Several attendees and speakers praised the district for its progress, especially on its high-school-graduation rate — which increased to 73 percent from 67 percent in the year before and 62 percent in 2007. Enfield called that rate a "tremendous point of pride."
Significant progress was also seen in third-grade reading test scores (with 79 percent passing, up from 75 percent the year before) and 10th-grade science test scores (with 53 percent passing, up from 47 percent the year before).
"I can tell you and anybody in this city that when you choose Seattle Public Schools, you get a quality education," proclaimed City Councilmember Tim Burgess in his remarks.
Yet, in many ways, the scorecard left as much cause for concern as it did for optimism.
• Scores slipped in a handful of categories — including the percent of students prepared for a four-year college — 61 percent, compared with 63 percent the year before).
• Most of the improvements that were made were small.
• Perhaps most notably, the achievement gap showed no real sign of shrinking.
Students of color did perform better on state reading and math tests, but so did white students — maintaining the achievement gap. And the gap actually grew significantly for one group, Native American students, who were the only group of students to perform worse on tests than the year before.
"There are obviously lots and lots of issues — about the achievement gap and so forth — where we haven't made the progress we need to and we have a long way to go," Sundquist said.
Some community leaders expressed concern about the announcement — tucked into Enfield's presentation — that the district would reconsider the goals set in 2007.
The goals, made as part of a strategic plan spearheaded by former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, targeted 23 categories that were key indicators of student success, said School Board member Michael DeBell, who was on the board when it passed the goals. The targets were seen as achievable based on past progress and high levels of state funding, he said.
As recently as last fall, when the last district scorecard was released, Goodloe-Johnson and other district officials insisted that the goals were reachable.
They are no longer realistic in part because it's a "very different economic reality," Enfield said Tuesday.
"We need our goals to be challenging but achievable," she said. "If we know we might not meet the goals and we may not be able to do all that we set out to do in 2007, we need to revisit it."
Some community members said scaling back the targets would send the wrong message to students.
"I think before we shift those goals we should have a very serious conversation about why we're not making more progress," said Robin Lake, associate director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. "I don't think talking about the lack of new resources is the right direction. This is our new reality, and we have to figure out how to make progress in it."
The conversation about scaling back the goals will begin in January, Enfield said.
