What percentage of students in a school district should be considered proficient in English and math?
That’s a question not all Chandler Unified School District governing board members and administrators answer the same way.
At the end of a presentation on student achievement that was the focus of a Nov. 13 work session, board member Kurt Rohrs asked why there isn’t more emphasis on boosting student achievement more quickly.
“An across-the-board 2% increase isn’t the same, going from 60% to 62%, versus 30 to 32%,” Rohrs said. “I don’t know if I can get behind that.”
This chart, one of many used in a Nov. 13 presentation on Chandler Unified School District 2023-24 student achievement data. CUSD students, as a group, continue to display higher proficiency in English language arts and math than the state average.
Courtesy of Chandler USD
Jessica Edgar, the district's director of curriculum and instruction, told Rohrs a key to leaps and bounds increases in proficiency is individualized, tailored interventions. She said communication among staff and looking at many different types of group and subgroup data helps staff know where and how to intervene.
Kym Marshall, the district’s director of student services, says taking disabilities and other learning obstacles into account is important as well.
Data points to CUSD students consistently scoring well above state averages in both English language arts and math, though the district has lost a single percentage point in student proficiency in 2023-24 in both categories.
The first half of the presentation was devoted to recently released state letter grades for Chandler as a district and for each of its 40-plus sites. Though CUSD was given a B grade as district, only 11% of its schools received as low as a C and it had zero D-grade schools, four site grades are under appeal.
View the video of the Nov. 13 presentation on the YouTube channel “Chandler USD Governing Board” or view the slides by clicking here.
We invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this topic. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Email Jason W. Brooks at jbrooks@iniusa.org.
Jason W. Brooks
Associate Editor
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
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