Kanawha County public school students generally improved their end-of-year standardized test scores from the 2014-15 school year to last school year, putting the county about in line with the preliminary statewide proficiency rates, according to county-level rates the West Virginia Department of Education released Wednesday.
Like the trend in Kanawha and the state overall, Putnam County saw increases of a few percentage points in its math and English language arts proficiency rates, but a slight decrease in the science rate, the only other tested subject.
Monongalia and Ohio counties had the highest English and math proficiency rates of all 55 West Virginia counties.
McDowell - West Virginia's southernmost county and one whose poverty has received national attention as an example of the struggles of Appalachian coal country - kept the lowest proficiency rates in the state last school year in all three subjects.
But it improved: Its English proficiency rate rose from 31 percent to 34, its math rate from 13 percent to 17, and its science rate from 20 percent to 22.
Counties are now free to publicly release the proficiency rates for individual schools, education department spokeswoman Kristin Anderson said, and the state plans to release school-level information online by November. Anderson said that release will be in conjunction with the debut of A-F grades for entire schools.
The overall scores and increases or decreases in scores on the standardized tests, given in the spring, will be the primary factors in what grades schools receive on the new A-F scale.
Comparing final proficiency rates from 2014-15 to the preliminary rates for last school year, Kanawha's English proficiency rate rose 3 percentage points, to reach 47 percent last school year, while Putnam's English rate ticked up 1 percentage point, to reach 54 percent. The statewide English rate rose 2 percentage points, to reach 47 percent.
Kanawha's math proficiency rate rose 2 percentage points, to hit 31 percent, while Putnam's math rate also rose 2 percentage points, to hit 39 percent. The statewide math rate was 30 percent, up 4 percentage points from 2014-15.
Kanawha's science proficiency rate last school year was 35 percent, down 1 percentage point, while Putnam's science rate was 45 percent, down 2 percentage points. The statewide rate dropped 1 percentage point, to equal 36 percent.
Jon Duffy, Kanawha's director of counseling and testing, said the district will be sending individual results home with kids on Aug. 26. He also said the school system likely won't release preliminary school-level results, instead waiting until the state releases the final school-level results data.
Missy Ruddle, Kanawha's assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said Wednesday that she doesn't know what drove the science rate decrease. She noted only that the math and English scores are part of the upcoming A-F rating.
"Obviously, they're focusing on ELA and math," Ruddle said of schools, "and I'm afraid, sometimes, science and social studies aren't getting as much of a focus. As a principal, I'd probably do the same thing, when you're going to get a grade."
Last school year was the second year the Smarter Balanced standardized tests for math and English were given statewide. The proficiency rate represents the proportion of students who scored a 3 or 4 on Smarter Balanced, which has a 1-4 scale.
Smarter Balanced is aligned with the Common Core standards, a national standards blueprint that doesn't include science standards. The science exam is the Westest, a customized West Virginia test that the state used for math and English before it adopted Smarter Balanced.
The English proficiency rate for Ohio County, in the Northern Panhandle, dropped 1 percentage point, to 58 percent, but that remained last school year as the highest English rate in the Mountain State.
Monongalia, which was No. 2 in English in 2014-15, stayed in second place last school year. Its proficiency rate in that subject ticked up 1 percentage point, to 57 percent. Both counties' English rates were about 10 percentage points above the statewide rate.
In math, Monongalia kept its No. 1 spot last school year, with its proficiency rate rising 3 percentage points, to 43 percent, now 13 percentage points above the statewide rate. Ohio maintained its No. 2 position, with its math proficiency rate rising 2 percentage points, to 40 percent, 10 percentage points above the statewide rate.
In 2014-15, those two counties had science proficiency rates of 47 percent, tying them with Grant, Jefferson and Putnam counties for the highest science proficiency rate in West Virginia. Last school year, with the rates for Ohio, Monongalia and Putnam dropping a couple percentage points, Grant and Jefferson, which are in or near the Eastern Panhandle, remained tied for the highest science proficiency rate by maintaining 47 percent, 10 percentage points above the statewide rate.
Barbour County, which had nearly the lowest proficiency rates in the state in 2014-15, made relatively large gains last school year: its English rate rose from 32 percent to 38, its math rate from 17 percent to 25 and its science rate from 25 percent to 31.
"I think we focused on student engagement, primarily," Barbour schools Superintendent Jeff Woofter said, when asked what was behind the rate increases in his roughly 2,340-student district. "And then I think the second thing we did is we focused on increasing the confidence of our faculty, staff and students, just letting them know that they had the ability to compete with anybody in the state. And I think, once kids get a little taste of success, you can grow."
The rates are preliminary because they don't include results from the roughly 2,500 students who took the West Virginia Alternate Assessment, which is given to the students who have the most significant cognitive disabilities.
Also, the department is still calculating results for accountability purposes. Students who have been enrolled at a school for at least 135 days have their test results used in accountability calculations, so Anderson said there might be small changes before final results are released in November.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.