Teachers:  Arts Key to Test Score Increase

Posted on Fri, May. 23, 2003

Teachers: Arts key test-score increase
Rankin Elementary's end-of-grade marks jumped from 89.4% to 97.5% in 1 year
KAREN CIMINO
Staff Writer

GASTONIA - Dance, music and art lessons might be one reason Rankin Elementary School scored the highest marks in Gaston County on state standardized tests, teachers said Thursday. Rankin students did better than all other elementary and middle schools in Gaston County with 97.5 percent of its third- through fifth-graders scoring at or above grade level on the state's end-of-grade exams in math and reading. Last year, about 89.4 percent of Rankin students passed the exams.

"When you get up to the high end, getting those extra (percentage) points takes a little something extra special," said Rankin fifth-grade teacher Scott Griffin.

At Rankin, teachers believe that extra something was a program started in fall 2001. Rankin partnered with the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte to bring artists, poets, dancers, storytellers and other creative people from the area into its classrooms.

Teachers use visual and performing arts to help teach subjects such as math, science, history and language. For example, a lesson about a historic battle could be re-enacted through dance. "The whole effort there is to show that schools that embrace the arts ... will see an increase in test scores," Griffin said.

And, this year, that's true. The percentage of students passing the state's exams rose 8 percentage points.

But the good news didn't stop there.  Gaston County reported the highest scores it's had since the state started its ABCs testing program in 1997. Gaston reported that 84.3 percent of third- through eighth-graders passed the reading portion of the test and 89.7 percent passed math.

Lincoln County Schools hasn't released its scores. Kings Mountain District Schools reported passing rates of 87.9 percent to 92.2 percent in third- through eighth-grade reading scores and 90.1 percent to 98.2 percent in math.

Gaston also expects the state to name 17 elementary and middle schools as "schools of excellence," meaning 90 percent or more of students at those schools scored at or above grade level.

Overall, the number of third-graders scoring at or above their grade level in math jumped from 78.5 percent last year to 90 percent in 2003. The district also saw gains in fifth- and seventh-grade reading scores.