FARMINGTON -- Results from last spring's ACT Aspire tests for third-10th grades show that Farmington students scored higher in almost all test areas than the state average and regional average in math, English, reading and science.
Joe McClung, assistant superintendent, gave a report on the spring test results at Farmington School Board's Aug. 28 meeting.
For each grade and test area, McClung gave the percentage of Farmington students scoring at readiness levels, how that ranked regionally and how it compared to the state average and regional average.
For the regional comparison, McClung said he used test results from the 16 districts served by Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative, which includes Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, Fayetteville, Siloam Springs, Prairie Grove, Lincoln, Pea Ridge and Gravette.
Farmington's readiness percentage was higher than the state and regional average in all areas for all grades, with the exception of sixth grade math and eighth grade reading.
As an example, for third grade, 72.7% met the readiness benchmark in English, compared to a regional average of 62.2% and a state average of 62.7%.
For third grade, Farmington ranked in the top five regionally in all test areas. Results from the science exam improved 11%, compared to the results from the 2022 exam.
McClung highlighted celebrations for test results from each school.
At the middle school, McClung said Farmington's fifth grade was first in the region and fifth in the state for science. The school had double digit growth in fourth grade English and math, compared to results from the 2022 exams.
At the junior high, ninth grade results were in the top five in all test areas in the region.
In addition to the English, math, science and reading test results, the district's ELA score, which is a composite score that includes English, writing and reading, also was above the regional and state average for all grades, except eighth grade. For eighth grade, Farmington was just below the regional average with 46.3% of students meeting the ELA readiness benchmark, compared to 46.6% for the regional average.
McClung last week said Farmington schools are seeing steady improvements in test results and starting to rebound from learning loss that resulted from the covid-19 pandemic.
"Some areas are better than other areas," McClung said.
For each grade and test, the results show a comparison of the percentage of students who met readiness on the 2021-22 tests and the percentage who met the readiness benchmark on the 2022-23 exams.
For spring 2024, Arkansas schools are moving to a new test, called ATLAS (Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System). McClung said students in third-10th grades will take the ATLAS exams, beginning in April 2024.