The private, for-profit company that manages southern Baltimore's Westport Academy is replacing an assistant principal and some teachers there, saying it is "not pleased" with the results of the latest national standardized tests.
The changes being made by Victory Schools are focused at the elementary level, where the scores on this spring's TerraNova exams fell in grades one, four and five in both reading and math, and in grade three in reading.
The first-grade reading score saw the sharpest drop, from the 59th percentile - above the national median - to the 34th percentile. First-graders citywide increased their score from a year ago by 4 percentile points to the 59th percentile.
"We are not pleased with these results," said Marc S. Sternberg, vice president for development at the New York-based company. "A lot has gone well at the school. [But] we know where improvement needs to be made. We are committed to making it happen."
Westport, a combined elementary and middle school with about 600 children, will get a new assistant principal at the elementary level, Sternberg said. The new assistant, whom he declined to name, works at Westport as a middle school administrator, he said.
Sternberg said Victory also is replacing some elementary teachers, though he did not know how many.
Westport's middle school pupils fared better on the TerraNova than did their elementary counterparts. Though their math score was unchanged from a year ago, sixth-graders posted a 17-point gain in reading. The seventh- and eighth-grade math scores went up 20 points and 21 points, respectively. (The eighth-grade score reflects gains since fall 2000; all other grades took the test in the 2000-2001 school year in the spring.)
The state took over Westport last year, saying its elementary scores on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests were unacceptably low. But the State Board of Education - which took over three failing city elementaries in 2000 and handed them to Edison Schools Inc. - allowed city school officials to hire a contractor of their own choosing.
Baltimore schools Chief Executive Officer Carmen V. Russo placed Westport in a special "CEO's district" of failing schools and hired Victory to guide its overhaul over five years, the term of the company's $4 million contract. Russo, who is on vacation, was not available yesterday for comment.
Westport Principal Marjorie Miles called the TerraNova results, which were released by the school system Monday, a "mixed bag," but said that reform doesn't happen overnight. She is the school's second principal; the first, who had been in place before the state takeover was announced, was replaced in October.
"It takes time to stabilize a school," Miles said. "The whole academic picture is based on the culture and the climate in the school. You have to have a school that is conducive to learning."
Miles attributed the decline in the first-grade reading score in large part to the fact that three of the four first-grade teachers were new to teaching.
She also said that the elementary children were getting used to new teaching methods. Westport uses Direct Instruction and Core Knowledge, as it did before Victory took over. But officials have added a "balanced literacy" component to the curriculum, she said.
"We feel that literacy is not just about reading and writing, but we also believe that it is speaking and processing information," she said. "We're trying to teach children a variety of skills that can be applied across the board, which is different from what they were accustomed to doing."
Sternberg said Victory will work to duplicate at the elementary level the successes it has seen at the middle grades.
"It's a five-year process and we certainly had hoped for better results this year," he said. "But we'll have a patient approach. We know that this takes time and it takes hard work. We are giving Westport an incredible amount of attention and it's an incredibly important project for us."