Dear editor
I am writing this letter to clear up misleading information in last week’s letter regarding Gasconade County R2 schools.
Mr. Stockton quoted information from the Show-Me Institute. This organization does not support public education. This organization diverts public money to private entities.
According to the Show Me Institute our students cannot do general math, read or perform many basic educational requirements and gave our school district a grade of 1.7, which is not an official score, and definitely not an average GPA of students in the Gasconade County R-2 school system.
This biased score is from an independent organization that benefits from taking expenditures from local and public education and putting it into the hands of the wealthy private sector. Thus damaging smaller rural communities such as ours. Rather than use misleading data from a single source, here is some factual information regarding our students and our school.
Owensville High School students that take the ACT test, which is a nationally recognized test required for college entrance, have scored higher than the state average for the last three years. Our graduation rate and attendance rate are above state average. Which means students are coming to school and completing all the state requirements successfully. Data that was presented to the Board of Education last summer shows our average student had more than a year’s worth of growth in math last school year and 24 percdent of our students in grades K through 8 grew almost two full years in one year’s time.
This information comes from i-Ready data, another nationally recognized organization, that is an approved state assessment. According to more data presented to the school board this winter, the majority of K through 12 students were proficient in reading and showing mastery of reading content at only halfway through the year. This is based on STAR, another nationally recognized assessment, that is also approved by the state.
Did you know last year’s graduating class earned over 1.2 million dollars in scholarships for their academic, athletic, art, and career pathway success? Our students who applied to a four year university, had a 93 percent acceptance rate. 100 percent of students who applied for career apprenticeship/training program were accepted. If that’s not a sign of Gasconade County R-2 educational success, you’d be pressed to tell me what is.
Our community values hard work and on hand learning experiences. We are a working, middle class community and when compared to other schools in the state that have much more funding and resources, we are still on par, if not better. To continue our success and show even more improvement we need a community that is supportive of our schools and our children. So please, vote YES on April 7th. Show your support for Gasconade County R-2 schools.
Sincerely,
Shelby Uffmann
