Published: May 04, 2009 09:46 pm      

Vidor students perform well on TAKS math

VIDOR — Students in the Vidor Independent School District seem to be on the right track according to results from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).

Area school districts recently received preliminary results for the mathematics portion of the TAKS test for students in fifth and eighth grades. Students in third, fifth, and eighth grades are required to meet standard on their specific test subjects of the TAKS in order to move on to the next grade. Students in eleventh and twelfth grades have five opportunities to meet standard on the exit level TAKS test in order to graduate.

A campus must have at least 55 percent of its fifth or eighth grade students meet standard in math in the 2008-2009 school year to be an “Academically Acceptable” campus. To be “Recognized” a campus must have 75 percent of its students meet standard in each subject, and 90 percent must meet standard in each test subject to be considered “Exemplary.”

Fifth-graders at Vidor Middle School easily surpassed the “acceptable” standard as 82 percent of its students met standard on the TAKS math test. However, this is down four percentage points from the 86 percent meeting standard in 2008.

The 82 percent meeting standard at the middle school is also slightly less than the state average of 84 percent of fifth grade students meeting standard on the math TAKS test.

Eighth grade students at Vidor Junior High School show a large improvement over scores from the previous year’s students as 86 percent of eighth grade met standard this year. This represents a 13 percentage point increase over the 2008 results and surpasses the state average of 79 percent.

“We are pleased with the results from the first administration of the TAKS math test for our fifth and eighth grade students, but we know we can always do better,” said Debbie Gier, Vidor ISD test coordinator. “We believe we have enough time where we can get a number of students where they need to be before the next administration.”

The second administration of the TAKS math test is May 19. Students must meet standard in order to move on to sixth or ninth grades.

“We have high hopes for our students at the junior high,” Gier added. “We feel we can have 90 percent of our students meet standard and reach the ‘exemplary’ mark.”

Gier said students which still need to meet standard on the mathematics portion of the TAKS test will have plenty of help available in order to do so.

Students at Vidor Junior High will have schedule changes to allow for tutorials and extra study time, while Vidor Middle School students will have access to after school tutorials in order to prepare for the May 19 retest.





Tommy Mann Jr. is a reporter for The Orange Leader. He can be reached at 409-883-3571, Ext. 2619 or tmann@orangeleader.com