Concerns from parents, students, and educators across the Southeast Polk School District have been emerging over the school district’s Advanced Placement Matrix. The matrix, which is used to assess and place students in advanced and accelerated courses from elementary school to high school, is coming under fire from community members due to recurring cases of high-performing students not being selected or allowed to take advanced courses because of the way the matrix is measured.
Student Council president, senior Allie Etnyre, who is also the student body representative to the school board, has addressed her concerns with the matrix, saying the issue with the matrix is the lack of transparency with how it is measured. She explained that the matrix is measured off of a series of test scores, such as ISASP, I-Ready, and CogAT, as well as score growth and current academic performance, with certain test scores and grades being weighed differently depending on the subject. The issue that Etnyre has is that there is no clear benchmark for a student to reach with their matrix score, and the standards it is measured on. For example, for advanced math courses, test scores must exceed a specific number of standard deviations above the mean score of their tests. Educators and parents highlighted how excessively selective this has made advanced math classes. This is apparent when looking at the Southeast Polk elementary students who scored in the top 2% of their third-grade Math ISASP test, with only six of the fifteen students taking advanced mathematics. Reasons for this vary due to a standard not being met or score growth not being seen.
The matrix has been exposed to have its flaws in middle school and junior high as well, with high school special education teacher Eric Morrow sharing that his son, in the sixth grade, who is twice exceptional by being in TAG while also being dyslexic, had been barred from taking advanced classes. Morrow, citing issues in how his son’s matrix data was not being calculated the way they were informed it would be, also addressed what he see as the fundamental issues of some of the data collected.
“Two of the three [Matrix] data points are single-day tests, so a student is being decided what they can have access to from two of their school days out of 180.”
Overall, concern is that hardworking students are being snubbed from seizing their true academic potential, simply based on data points and flawed systematic academic assessment methods to decide whether a student is capable of taking advanced coursework, despite all the efforts they have shown proving why they are capable.
Now, thankfully, district administrators have heard the many concerns from the community and have begun reworking how students can take advanced courses. For example, 8th graders now have the option to choose whether they want to take an advanced class in 9th grade, an option they previously did not have when the 9th grade moved to the junior high. Now, community members are hopeful that this trend of systematic repairs continues so students can have what they need to soar to new academic heights here at Southeast Polk.
