Typically, higher standardized test scores are correlated with wealthier school districts, and we do see that here in New Hampshire. But certain smaller, rural schools have strong standardized test scores in the state. That's according to a report from the Concord Monitor's education reporter, Jeremy Margolis.
NHPR's Morning Edition host Rick Ganley spoke with Margolis about his analysis.
Transcript
Jeremy, what made you want to look into this in the first place?
I was listening to Gov. Kelly Ayotte's State of the State address last month, and during that speech, she tasked the Commissioner of the Department of Education with examining the schools that were performing the best on reading assessments.
I was interested in a little bit of a different question. As we know, the single strongest predictor of school standardized tests is income. So if we just looked at the best scores, I think that's what we would find. I did an analysis where I looked at the schools that were outperforming those expectations the most.
Let's talk more about those districts that are outperforming expectations given the socioeconomic status of their communities. What are some of those districts?
So eight of the 10 school districts that were outperforming the predicted scores the most were schools that had fewer than 100 test takers. So we're talking very small schools, mostly rural areas of the state.
And where are those?
I visited the Hill School District. This is a town next to the city of Franklin, about 30 minutes from Concord, very small town, about 1,100 people. And the school has only 63 students – that's pre-K to sixth grade. It's so small that there are certain grades that are actually combined. I believe the kindergarten and first grade is combined, and I think there's another one, as well.
And that was actually one of the key reasons the teachers and school leaders who I spoke to said their school was doing as well as it was. There's this on ramp that teachers have and students have at the beginning of the year. And when you're looping, when you're having the same students year after year, you learn to not start from scratch at the beginning of the year. And that's really helpful if you're a teacher in terms of hitting the ground running and understanding what students need very early on.
These teachers have a very close relationship with a very small student body, and they're able to really understand these children year to year.
Exactly.
So you interviewed more than a dozen teachers and school officials for this article. What other common similarities did you find between these smaller districts that are outperforming expectations?
Some of the similarities were unsurprising. In small schools, there are often small classes. At the Hill School [District], the classes range from about 12 to 15 students. At the top performing school, in the town of Mason, the range was 8 to 20 students. Obviously, we know that small classes are really important determinant of academic performance.
All of these schools had adopted a phonics-based approach to teaching literacy, which we know research suggests is the best way to teach reading. There was very low educator turnover. Many of these schools had teachers who had been there for decades. There was high reliance on data to identify students who were struggling.
And there was strong community support. These school budgets were getting passed without much of a challenge. One thing I should note is that these districts – they didn't have massive budgets. Some of them did, but I think about five of the top 10 school districts that were outperforming expectations the most had per pupil costs that were lower than the state average.
Another thing that jumped out was that pre-K was something that a lot of these schools offered. For instance, Hill's school district – its elementary school – is one of two in the state that have a free full-day pre-K. And just as it's really important to develop those routines and relationships for those students who attend the same class for multiple years, starting in pre-K in a building gives students a leg up where they're not starting from scratch in kindergarten.
