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years for all the state’s school systems and for the state as a whole. Thus it is possible to do comparisons not dnly with last year’s data but with the state and surrounding counties and to look for trends.
Standardized Tests
In a small school system like Rappahannock’s comparing county scores with those in surrounding counties and concluding anything about changes in scores from year to year is problematical. Some classes are just naturally stronger than others.
For last year’s junior class all 11th grade scores were above the average of surrounding counties and all but the percentage in the top half were above the state. That was not necessarily true in former years when several counties had a higher percentage in the top 50 or 25 percent nationally.
Eighth-grade standardized test scores are the most variable. Last year the percentage of 8th graders in the top 25 percent was the lowest in the five year period, lower than the state and lower than Fauquier, Warren and Madison counties. The percentage above the bottom 25 percent was high, as it has generally been over the five-year period.
Fourth-grade standardized test scores are below the state and the average of surrounding counties and also show a steady trend down over the five-year period, from 92 percent who were above the lowest 25 percent in 1992 to 78 percent last year and the year before and from 70 percent in the top half of the national test in 1992 and 74 percent in 1993 to 49 percent last year, although that was a significant improvement from the 39 percent in 1994.
Attendance
Since the Richmond Times Dispatch reported on Rappahannock’s attendance rates earlier in this school year, attendance statistics are worth looking at. According to the OAP overall the percentage of students who missed 10 of fewer days of school increased from 58 to 65 percent from 1994 to 1995. The percentage in 9th through 12th grades increased from 32 to 60 percent, while the percentage in kindergarten through fifth grades dropped from 75 to 65 percent, and the percentage in sixth through eighth grade dropped from 65 to 60 percent.
However, it is hard to give much credence to these statistics. If 65 percent missed 10 or fewer days of school in the lower six grades while the upper seven grades report that 60 percent had that level of attendance, how can the overall 13-grade figure be 65 percent?
96.1%