I hope you had a wonderful summer! This week marks the third week of school for our KIPPsters. We are off to an energetic and productive start, and it is exciting to see our KIPPsters really engaging with our Literacy is Life priority. Last week, the 2018-19 state and district PARCC test scores were released, and I want to take a moment to reflect on our school's past performance and plans for the future.
As you know, this is the fourth year our students have taken the statewide PARCC assessment, which is aligned with college-readiness standards. This is just one of many measures that KIPP Baltimore and other schools across the state use to gauge how our students are performing on the path to college and choice-filled lives.
Dr. Santelises noted in the District release regarding City Schools PARCC results that the District average of students receiving a 4 or 5 on PARCC increased in English Language Arts and Math in grades 3-8 from 2017 to 2018. We're excited to share that last year, for the second year in a row, KIPP Baltimore's students outperformed their district peers on the Math assessments in all tested grades. Specifically, in grades 4, 6, and 8 our KIPPsters received 4 and 5s on PARCC at a rate over 10 points above the District average!
Our students' English Language Arts performance remained strong as District average performance grew year over year. We exceeded the District average in grades 4, 6 and 7. This year, we are excited to introduce a new literacy curriculum, KIPP Wheatley, to better serve our students in grades K-8. KIPP Wheatley, which was developed through the KIPP Foundation, will more closely tie to content tested on the PARCC assessment, while also providing our students with access to more diverse texts and writing opportunities. We believe that with this and other changes to our literacy instruction we will again exceed District average results in all grades in the coming year.
While PARCC is just one assessment of our students' success, we know that there is still much work to do to ensure our students are ready to succeed in high school, college, and the workforce. In the year to come, we are committed to building upon our successes in math and implementing strong best practices to grow our students' skills. As always, we are grateful for the role that you play in supporting our students on their journeys to and through college and careers.
