Bangor’s fourth-grade MEA scores show need for early intervention

While Bangor’s fourth-grade Maine Educational Assessment scores show an overall level of stability, individually the two schools involved in the testing show a slightly different story.

According to the MEA reports, fourth-graders attending Fairmount School last year had lower home educational resources and a lower percentage of white-collar working parents than their counterparts at the Mary Snow School. And at Fairmount, more than 50 percent of its fourth-graders last year were eligible for the free or reduced lunch program, compared with the 21 to 30 percent at Mary Snow.

There were also 4 percent more pupils with reading levels as much as two years behind their peers attending Fairmount than Mary Snow. The state average was 16 percent, or 1 percent below Fairmount’s level.

These socioeconomic factors are evidenced to some degree in the MEA scores. Scores range from 100 to 400 points and a 50-point change is considered a significant difference.

While the school’s three-year cumulative average in all six content areas is above the state average, over the past two years scores have dropped considerably. Since the 1987-88 test year, scores in reading have dropped 70 points, 85 points in mathematics, and between 25 and 65 points in writing, science, social studies, and humanities. No two-year statistics were available for Mary Snow.

At Fairmount, where 158 pupils participated in the testing, writing and humanities remained at last year’s score of 260 and 250 respectively. Decreases from last year, however, ranged from 15 points in social studies to 35 points in mathematics and 45 points in science.

At the Mary Snow school, where 159 pupils took the test, scores were 5 to 35 points below last year’s scores in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. In the sixth tested subject of humanities there was a 15-point increase from the 1988-89 score of 255.

System-wide scores in all but humanities declined 10 to 25 points. In humanities there was an increase of 10 points.

Fairmount’s declining scores can be traced back to 1988 when the system was reorganized and the Downeast and Fourteenth Street schools reopened. Pupils from new Capehart were assigned to attend Mary Snow after they left the third grade at Downeast. Old Capehart pupils were sent to Fairmount.

This year, the new data show that Downeast pupils tended to score the lowest in all of the tested areas. At the Fairmount School, Downeast pupils accounted for 27 percent of the fourth-graders taking the test, but only 8 percent of those at Mary Snow.

Information from the MEAs and other tests have led system officials to intensify their early intervention programs. Superintendent James Doughty said Thursday that there are still many pupils who are at risk and have not been reached by the programs that are in place or are being put in place.

While no specific programs or areas have been identified, Downeast with its higher population of at-risk pupils may be considered a priority.

Downeast is a concern, said Assistant Superintendent Sandy Ervin, “but I feel that it’s the kind of situation that with a little attention can be turned around.”