Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

GAP gets a look at Benchmark testing

Bonnie Ross, federal funds coordinator who is also in charge of keeping up with the Benchmark test results, offered the following direction on Tuesday, Sept. 5, to members and guests of the Gurdon Schools Closing the Achievement Gap Task Force.

Ross was invited to address the group by Chairman Charles Bullard in order to give the task force a better idea of who is achieving up to state standards and who is having problems.

Ross said all three Gurdon campuses passed the Benchmark exams this year, which means the percentage of proficient status or above met the state expectations throughout the Gurdon School District.

However, she did warn that Gurdon Primary School and Gurdon Middle School would have to meet standards again this coming spring before being taken off of the state improvement list.

"The only negative Gurdon had during this past Benchmark was in the African American high school sub group for math," she said. "We were placed on alert because of having just 16 to make the proficient level out of 62 testers in that sub group.

"The students we are trying to close the gap for are those not meeting standards."

Ross said those taking the spring tests are in grades three through eight and grade 11.

"It gives us a picture of those taking these tests," she said. "By the time our current sixth and seventh graders take their end of course math tests, the state will be requiring they pass those tests to pass the course."

Ross said one thing test preparation now includes is giving more personalized attention to "bubble kids."

"Bubble kids are those that took the test and almost made the proficient cut-off," she said. "Weve got a good chance of them making it next time."

Ross told the task force that a lot of effort goes into analyzing test data, as it is believed that the more we know about the kids, the better chance we have to improve them."