‘This is not acceptable’: FWISD continues to lag in reading, assessment scores show
Nearly three-quarters of Fort Worth ISD students performed below grade level in English on an assessment last month, the district’s interim superintendent told the school board Tuesday.
Among students in grades 3-8, 27.5% scored on grade level last month on a quarterly English language arts assessment. In math, 39.5% of students in those grades scored on grade level.
Karen Molinar, who became the district’s acting leader a little over a month ago, emphasized that the assessment results are only meant to give teachers a clear idea of which concepts they need to go back and re-teach, and can’t be used to predict how students will perform on state tests.
That being said, Molinar acknowledged that the district needs to improve academically, and outlined plans for offering extra help to students who are behind. At a meeting last month, Molinar told the board that she planned to send central office staff members to schools to work with students in small groups. At Tuesday’s meeting, Molinar said that more than 140 specialists and content coordinators will begin going to campuses next week to begin to get to know the students they’ll be working with.
“After Thanksgiving, we go full force,” she said.
At last month’s meeting, Molinar sounded the alarm on academic achievement, saying that if the district didn’t intervene, nearly three-quarters of all students would score below grade level on the upcoming STAAR exams.
Fort Worth ISD has come under fire in recent months over years of stagnant academic performance. Over the past decade, the district has made virtually no progress on STAAR exams. Last year, 29% of students across grades 3-8 scored on grade level, just one point better than in 2015. Meanwhile, other big urban districts like Dallas ISD and Houston ISD have seen steady gains.
During the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting, Robert Rogers, president of the nonprofit Reading League of Texas, presented finalized scores from the most recent STAAR exam. Across the district, 24% of third-graders scored on grade level in reading on the state test.
While that figure is worrisome on its own, Rogers, who has volunteered as a reading tutor in Fort Worth ISD for decades, noted that the picture is much worse at some individual campuses: At seven schools, only one in 10 students are reading at grade level. At six campuses, every Black student is behind in reading, he said.
“This is not acceptable,” Rogers told the board. “And I’m not saying you all are doing unacceptable work. I’m saying we as a community are doing unacceptable work.”
