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The State Department of Education released the results of the Spring 2017 assessments to districts. The district is still analyzing and interpreting the results, but reports that Bartlesville students, on each assessment, consistently outperformed the state averages.

However, as expected, the number of students who rated Proficient or Advanced has fallen dramatically statewide across all assessments. This is due to a deliberate choice to use higher standards, more complex assessments, and higher cut scores.

The state reset its assessment system so that state results in elementary and middle school would yield similar proficiency levels as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and so that high school proficiency levels would match up to results from the ACT college readiness examination.

Bartlesville Public Schools says “The decreases from previous years do NOT mean our students are less skilled or our schools or teachers are less effective. Instead, they reflect how Oklahoma’s scores have been re-calibrated to align with national data and assessments. The 2016-2017 state results represent a new beginning and are a total reset; no comparison is possible with student or school.”

The district says that they only have limited data, and they caution  that this methodology has significant statistical issues, but data appears to show BPS is above the league when relative poverty rates are taken into account.

(Charts provided by Bartlesville Public School District)