By JESSICA SIEFF

Niles Daily Star

For school districts throughout the state, this week was their turn to receive report cards.

Michigan’s Department of Education released results of EducationYES! Report Cards that included a look at how well districts and their schools are doing in making Adequate Yearly Progress — a measure of performance of district schools as a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The report cards “”are really based upon test scores, the MEAP scores and the Michigan Merit Exam (MME) scores and also based upon whether or not schools are showing improvement,” said Brandywine Community Schools Superintendent John Jarpe. “On the high school level they’re also based upon graduation rate.”

The Michigan MEAP scores are state standard measures that test students on core concepts such as reading, math and writing skills.

Current scores are combined with those of previous years to determine whether or not the school has made progress.

“From one year to the next you have more kids in the proficient range than in the prior year,” Jarpe said.

A certain amount of self-reporting is also done by districts to contribute to the results.

The subject of how to measure a student’s achievement was the subject of a recent workshop between the Niles Community Schools Board of Education and Superintendent Richard Weigel.

“It was eye opening,” trustee Jeff Curry said. “I think it really opened our eyes as to what the scores really meant and how they come about getting them. I think the point that Richard was making is let’s not be so focused on these assessment scores; let’s be focused on the student. Success in life, not for success on just a test. The success on the test will come if we’re focused on their well-being.”

Weigel and the board discussed ways to measure the achievement of Niles students as they begin and continue through the school year.

“We have very good schools,” said Weigel in a statement. “And by comparison we have as good and better achievement on these measures of success as anyone around us.

“Most of the state standards are all lower level thinking,” he said. “They are knowledge level standards but our students need to have the higher level thinking ability.

“Knowledge is important but once a student has they knowledge then there needs to be comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the information,” he said. “That is all higher-level thinking. That is what helps our students to become problem solvers.”

Board president Dana Daniels agreed the information was “eye opening.”

“Basically what it boiled down to was … the MEAP scores, while they’re a good indicator on how you’re doing versus the state average, in my opinion aren’t really a good indicator of how your kid is achieving.”

How will new measurements of student success translate when it comes to the classroom?

“It will translate into different teaching techniques, a lot more training for our teachers, which I think is a good thing,” Daniels said. “’In essence, I think what it translates to is different ways of teaching the kids and raising our standards.

“This is not going to be a sprint; it will be a marathon,” Daniels said of the future. “(It’s) cultural change and a paradigm shift, those have got to take place.”