RISON - Rison Elementary and Woodlawn Elemetary have both been recognized as Top 20 schools by the Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas for growth in their Arkansas Teaching, Learning & Assessment System (ATLAS) test scores last year. Schools within each region are presented with the Outstanding Educational Performance (OEP) Awards based on student growth on the ATLAS exams in math and English/language arts (ELA) as well as Overall growth (average of math and ELA growth) from one year to the next.In the Overall category for elementary schools in the Southeast Arkansas Region, Rison Elementary ranked fourth with an overall content growth of 83.28 while Woodlawn Elementary ranked fifth with a content growth of 83.07. Both schools include students in kindergarten through 6th grade.Thomas Brunson Elementary in Warren had the most growth at 85.64 followed by C.B. Partee Elementary (84.66) at Brinkley and Anna Strong Learning Academy (83.39) in Lee County.Rison Elementary also placed fifth for math in the Southeast District with a content growth score of 82.28.Rison Elementary was third in the Southeast Region for ELA with a content growth score of 84.27 while Woodlawn was fourth with a score of 84.21."We choose to focus on student growth for these OEP awards because we think it is a better reflection than proficiency rates of how the school is impacting students," stated Dr. Sarah McKenzie, executive director at the Office for Education Policy at University of Arkansas, in a statement announc-ing the awards.Growth is calculated at the student level, and essentially reflects how much a student improved his or her score from the prior year compared to what was predicted based on prior achievement history. Proficiency rates, even those that move beyond the "percent proficient" like our OEP GPA, are more correlated with student demographics than growth scores. This means that schools can demonstrate high st...
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