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For Immediate Release
Larkdale Elementary Third-Graders Show Increase in FCAT
Scores after One Year of Voyager Passport
School Now Ranked in Top Five Percent of Reading First Schools in Broward County, Nation's Sixth-Largest School District
Broward County, FL, June 23, 2006 – After only 26 weeks of using Voyager Passport™, a reading intervention program developed by Voyager Expanded Learning®, 56 percent of third-graders at Larkdale Elementary School passed the 2006 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). This represents a 47 percent increase in the number of students passing compared to 2005, when only 38 percent of students passed the test.
Larkdale launched the Voyager Passport program with all students at risk of failing the FCAT in grades kindergarten though five during the 2005-2006 school year after the Florida Department of Education graded the school an "F" due to poor performance on the FCAT and insufficient learning gains made by students.
At the end of this year, Larkdale achieved a "C" grade from the Florida Department of Education and was only eight points from a "B." "The district is thrilled at the quickness with which the children have begun to demonstrate reading proficiency," says Ramon Dawkins, Larkdale Elementary School principal.
The strong growth made by Larkdale's primary grades also earned the school a rank of seventh out of 138 elementary schools in the district for highest learning gains, and the school is in the top five percent of the 52 Broward County Reading First schools. According to the Florida State Quarterly Report, 84 percent of all Larkdale students who began the year at-risk made significant academic gains and finished the year performing at or above grade level.
"The improved performances of the students came directly from the intensive intervention of Voyager Passport, comprehensive professional development of teachers and staff and Voyager's progress monitoring initiative," says Dawkins.
Because of Larkdale's success, Broward County Schools recently began using Voyager Passport as the core curriculum for the district's summer reading program.
Larkdale Elementary School serves approximately 526 students in the Broward County Public School District, the nation's sixth largest school district. Larkdale's demographics are: 97 percent African American, 1 percent Caucasian, 1 percent Hispanic and 1 percent multi-racial. Ninety-five percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunch.
About Voyager Expanded Learning
Voyager Expanded Learning provides core, intervention and supplemental reading programs, as well as math intervention and ongoing professional development programs for school districts throughout the United States. Founded in 1994, Voyager has delivered extended-time reading and basic skills intervention programs as well as large-scale reading programs to more than 900 school districts in cities such as Dallas, Phoenix, New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, resulting in dramatically improved student performance. Voyager Expanded Learning, Inc. is part of ProQuest Education, a business segment of ProQuest Company, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For more information, please visit www.voyagerlearning.com or call 1-888-399-1995
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