Oasis Academy’s test results from last school year show the charter school outperforming the county, state and other high-ranked Common Core states and institutions.
“Over the past five years, we have consistently performed in the top 5 percent of students in the state of Nevada,” said Melissa Mackedon, executive director of Oasis. “It has often been asked by our board, the staff and some parents how well we would measure up with other states that historically rank at the top in education. For the first time, we are starting to get the answer to that question.”
Connecticut is the highest ranked state to which Oasis can be compared, and the school well outperformed the state’s average in both English Language Arts (ELA or reading and writing) and math. Oasis also outperformed Nevada, California, Washington, Montana, Delaware and West Virginia in ELA and math.
Oasis’ ELA competency reached a 78 percent average across grades and 57 percent in math. The seventh grade earned a 95 percent in ELA and 68 percent in math, followed by the fourth graders with 88 percent in ELA and 65 percent in math. The fifth grade achieved 78 percent in ELA, and the third grade earned 60 percent in math.
In ELA, the school outscored the State Public Charter School Authority (SPCSA) 78-57 and the county with its score of 45. In math, Oasis outscored SPCSA 57-43 and the county with its score of 27.
Though included in the overall scores, Free and Reduced Lunch recipients achieved a 78 percent in ELA and 54 percent in math, both scores over double the state average. For Individualized Education Program (special education) students, they earned a 38 percent in ELA and 25 percent math, again more than doubling the state.
Despite the results, Mackedon said there have always been testing deployment problems including students having to restart tests numerous times.
Data for each entity and state came from the Nevada Department of Education and individual state websites.
“While we are thrilled with our performance, we look forward to sitting down with our School Improvement Team in the coming months to determine how we can improve further,” Mackedon said. “Way to go, Bighorns!”