Making The Grade: Schools Excel In AYP

August 11, 2005 By BEN GARRETT
Independent Herald Editor

NASHVILLE — The results are in, and for a second consecutive year, every school in Scott County has met the federally-mandated No Child Left Behind’s Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements.

While administrators at both the Oneida Special School District and the Scott County School System first learned several weeks ago that their schools had met the AYP federal benchmarks, the results were not released to the public until last week by the Tennessee Department of Education.

“Each year, the bar is raised by NCLB so it becomes increasingly more difficult to meet AYP,” OSSD Director of Schools Henry Baggett said. “Our community has set high standards for our schools and our continued success reflects those high standards.

“We are very proud of our teachers, administrators, staff and students who work extremely hard to make our schools the best they can be,” Baggett added.

Scott County Director of Schools Mike Davis credited his schools’ results to effort.

“We’re very pleased with the results of the student assessment, that our students were not only able to meet but in most cases exceed the AYP benchmarks,” he said. “I attribute that to a lot of hard work on the behalf of the teachers and the staff, parent support, and of course the students demonstrating that they have mastered the objectives that they were taught.

“It’s been good for our school system to meet or exceed these benchmarks for two consecutive years,” he added.

No Child Left Behind, a sweeping education reform bill, was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002. Much criticized by both educators and other supporters of public education, NCLB essentially requires schools to meet ever-increasing federal benchmarks for students’ academic improvement each year. If a school fails to meet those benchmarks, it faces a varying degree of “accountability measures,” beginning with parents of students at the school being offered a school choice after the second year the school fails to meet AYP standards, to a virtual takeover of the school by the state after the sixth year of failing to meet the benchmarks.

Each year, the U.S. Department of Education, in conjunction with each state department of education, releases each school district’s AYP results. Most schools in Scott County have met AYP benchmarks all three years since NCLB was implemented. All Oneida Special School District schools, and all Scott County schools with the exception of Winfield and Scott High, met AYP in 2003. All local schools met AYP in 2004.

In the 2004-05 school year, 85 percent of Tennessee’s public schools met the AYP benchmarks, according to the state Department of Education. In most counties surrounding Scott, all schools met the AYP standards. The exception was Campbell County, where East LaFollette Elementary and LaFollette Middle School have been placed on the NCLB “Targeted” list — a list of schools that have failed to meet AYP benchmarks for one year.

In all, 29 Tennessee school districts had schools that were placed on the NCLB targeted list, while 27 school districts had schools that were placed on the NCLB “high-priority” list — a list of schools that have failed to meet AYP requirements for at least two years.

AYP benchmarks require that a specified percentage of students test proficient in two categories — math and language arts. Not only does the benchmark apply to the school as a whole, but a specified percentage of students in several subcategories — including white students, Hispanic students, African-American students, Native-American students, Asian/Pacific Islander students, economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities and students that have limited proficiency in the English language — must also test proficient in those two subjects. The exception is if a school has fewer than 45 students in any of those subcategories, the benchmark does not apply for that specific category.

In both local school systems, the only subcategories that individual schools had to report in were “white students” and “economically disadvantaged students.” Each school had fewer than 45 students in each of the other subcategories.

School systems can also meet or fail the AYP benchmarks aas a whole based on the total number of students in each subcategory. While no individual school in the Scott County School System had enough students with disabilities to be required to report those scores to the state, the combined number of students with disabilities in the system exceeded 45. The school system failed to meet the federal benchmark in both math proficiency and language arts proficiency in that particular subcategory.

The Oneida Special School District as a whole was not required to report in any additional subcategory besides “white students” and “economically disadvantaged students.”

In 2004-2005, in order to meet the federal benchmarks, 83 percent of elementary students had to test proficient or advanced in reading/language arts and 89 percent were required to test proficient or advanced in math. Those benchmarks were up from 77 percent and 72 percent, respectively, in 2003-2004.

At the high school level, 90 percent of students were required to test proficient or advanced in reading/language arts and 75 percent for math, up from 86 percent and 65 percent, respectively, in previous years.

The results appear to show that the state’s schools are improving. Despite increased benchmarks, 116 of the 165 schools in Tennessee that were in “high priority” status last year met performance standards this year. Under NCLB requirements, they will have to meet the AYP benchmarks for one more year to be removed from the list. The State Department of Education reported that, statewide, eight schools moved off the high priority list this year while only two moved onto it, bringing the total number of high priority schools in Tennessee to 159 out of 1,693 total schools.

Governor Phil Bredesen complimented all involved for the progress made.

“I want to congratulate the students, parents, teachers and communities who are truly meeting the challenge and moving our state forward,” Bredesen said. “I am pleased that we are seeing positive results and I am committed to keeping education as our state’s highest priority. Education is not only the key to success for our young people, it is the key to the future success of our state.”

NCLB calls for federal benchmarks to continue to increase. By the year 2014, AYP will require 100 percent proficiency among students in math and in language arts.

news@ihoneida.com

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