Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

by Donald Crane

Each summer for the past five years, Prescott High School has offered the College Preparatory and Enrichment Program (CPEP).

This program is funded by the state legislature and is designed to help students improve their scores on the American College Test (ACT). Two to three points in improvement are considered to be a realistic expectation. Results have been varied but students have shown improvement.

The group we had this summer was most unusual. We began with the largest group ever enrolled -- about 30 students -- and ended with only 10. Apparently, there were just too many things going on. Many of the drops were band students who had band camp the final week and could not take the project test. Others were involved in athletic camps, cheerleading, church trips and family vacations.

But of the 10 who completed the class, something unique happened. Some of them went as far as to check out study manuals and get together during the day to work. They took a real interest in trying to improve their scores, and they did! The average score increase for those who had previous ACT scores was five points. Read it again -- five points. That is the largest increase we have ever had from one of our summer classes. It really shows what a student can do if they have a desire to learn.

I just hope we had students as strongly motivated during the Stanford-9 testing last week. The test went off as well as one could expect considering our handicapping situation. Students as a whole were most cooperative and we managed to stick with out time schedule. I think the secret was in the teacher. Teachers went with their students on the breaks and led them back to the rooms when the breaks ended. I still heard a few complaints about students rushing through and not spending enough time on the individual parts of the test.

The testing lasted three days, and it got a bit tedious. The ninth grade test was longer than the other two grades, and that made it difficult to administer. That meant the ninth grade students and teachers got shorter breaks, but they accepted it well. The one general comment I heard most was, "This test is boring." It's unfortunate that the one instrument most commonly used to evaluate teaching and learning is a boring test.

The seniors who weren't tested were treated to snacks and guest speakers in the gymnasium. I wasn't free to attend, but I heard they were good. Some of the seniors found excuses to check out and miss some of these meetings. Paul Noesser gave them some very good information about the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope, and all of them needed to hear that.

All in all, we were very pleased with the events of the week. To get through achievement testing is a major goal of the year.