Third-Grade Test Scores in Highline Show Continued Drops From Pre-Covid Scores

by Stuart Jenner

Highline’s 2024 third-grade students are on a very different trajectory than the “Pre-Covid” third-grade students. Why isn’t Highline recovering academically, especially compared to Seattle and the rest of the state?

In my September 11 article on the Highline School District test scores for students in 4th, 6th, and 10th grades, I mentioned if students have not achieved a foundation in reading by the end of third grade, they will have challenges in future years.

So, what is the status of third-grade student test results for Highline, five other south King County districts (Auburn, Federal Way, Kent, Renton, Tukwila), Seattle, and Washington State as a whole?

The bottom line is that the 2024 third-grade students are on a very different trajectory than the third-grade students tested in 2019, prior to Covid shutdowns.

This is very discouraging, as one could hope the 2024 third-grade students (with kindergarten spent online but then full years in person of first, second, and third grade) would not be as impacted as older students who had to spend part of one year and all of the next in online learning.

Here are some key findings based on the OSPI Washington State report card:

1. Seattle has much better test results than any of the districts in south King County.

Seattle has a different demographic mix, so I’m not comparing it in the next sections. But it is very humbling to read about all the challenges the district has, then see that Seattle’s percentage of students meeting standard is about twice as high as Highline’s.
Looking at some of the Seattle schools located just north of Highline, the scores are not all that different from the schools in Highline. The percents might be 20% Highline, 30% Seattle, but not 20%/60% as in the entire Seattle district. The north Seattle schools definitely boost the district as a whole.
Seattle’s 2024 test scores have nearly returned to 2019 levels, far better than the results in south King County districts where scores are 5.4% to 21.9% lower, as noted by Danny Westneat in his recent article on Covid recovery.

2. For ELA (English), all six South King districts had a lower percentage of students meeting standard in 2024 than they had in 2023.

Kent has had three straight years of drops.
The other five districts did have higher scores in 2023 than 2022. The drops in 2024 compared to 2023 ranged from 0.5% (Highline) to 3.9% (Federal Way).

3. For Math, some 2024 numbers are higher, others are lower, than 2023.

There are increases in Math scores each of the past three years in the Renton, Kent, and Auburn districts.
Comparing 2024 to 2023, Auburn and Renton were 2.3 and 2.4% higher, Highline and Kent were 0.1% and 0.2% higher, Federal Way had a drop of 0.7%, and Tukwila dropped 7.7%

4. Comparing 2019, the last year before Covid, and 2024, there is a noticeable drop in both Math and ELA for all districts in south King County.

The biggest drops are in Tukwila. They have about half as many students meeting standard in the 2024 tests as they did in 2019.

5. Looking at the 2017, 2018 and 2019 numbers, there were some ups and downs.

Renton had three straight years of ELA gains, from 47.9% (2017) to 50.7% (2019). Renton also had three straight years of Math gains.
Kent had three straight years of drops in ELA (this means they’ve now had lower scores for each of the past six years of testing, from 53.7% (2017) to 37.3% (2024) meeting ELA standard.
Kent also had three straight years of drops in Math. After Covid though, they’ve had some ups and downs, not a straight line drop as they’ve had in English.
The other four districts had no visible trend. Some years were higher than the previous year, some lower.

In Summary

There is an overwhelming amount of data about Highline and the other districts on the state report card, and there are many complex factors and unanswered questions, so the more people looking at the data and trying to figure out what’s going on, the better.