Those low marks on math and reading tests netted earlier this year by the nation’s public school students didn’t really surprise Donna Talerico, Monongalia’s deputy schools superintendent said.
School districts across the country took big remedial dives – record lows for many, in fact – the countrywide assessment by the U.S. Department of Education, which released the numbers from its most recent round of testing earlier this week.
The test carries a 500-point scale, but no public school district – anywhere – came close to that benchmark.
Especially across the Mountain State.
While fourth-graders nationwide averaged 235 in math, their peers in West Virginia scored an average of 226.
Fourth-grade reading scores averaged out 205 in West Virginia, opposed to 216 nationally.
The Mountain State’s eighth-graders netted an average of 260 in math, compared to the country’s overall score of 273.
Eighth-grade reading scores came in at 249 for West Virginia, and 259 elsewhere.
Totals for both grades, in both disciplines, put West Virginia around 44th in the country, among 50 states and the District of Columbia.
But that’s not Mon County, Talerico said.
The federal Department of Education compiles test scores and related data from the global view, meaning no district breakdowns.
Which also means Mon’s school officials have no way of knowing how the local district matched up with other systems across the country.
Mon, meanwhile, generally outpaces its neighbors in reading and math proficiency scores across the state – although those scores, Talerico said, could always be better.
According to the most numbers from the state Department of Education, Mon students in grades 3-8 here came with a 53% rate in reading proficiency. Math and science scores here were shy of that, with 47% and 42% showings, respectively.
While watchers and critics of America’s sometimes failing schools are bemoaning those numbers this week, they also have a catalyst for this most recent slide.
The pandemic.
Schools were shuttered at the height of it.
On March 13, 2020 – Friday, the 13th – Gov. Jim Justice ordered all schools closed while the coronavirus began nudging into counties and the first positive cases were recorded.
That following Monday, Mon’s schools, and everyone else’s schools were flipped to a whole new mission of remote learning – like it or not, for better or worse.
Schools everywhere still haven’t gotten over that, Talerico said.
But there is a remedy, the deputy superintendent said.
“This shows us that our kids need to be in school,” she said.
“They need to be in their classrooms. They need to be in front of their teachers.”
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