No Child Left behind seems to be working
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| Wed, 08-25-2004 - 3:08pm |
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04238/367415.stm
81% of Pa. schools get passing grades
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
By Eleanor Chute and Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Four of five Pennsylvania public schools are meeting requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, a significant increase over last year.
State Education Secretary-designee Francis Barnes yesterday released the state's 2004 Academic Achievement Report, which showed that 81 percent of schools -- compared with 62 percent last year -- made "adequate yearly progress." Schools are required to make progress under the No Child Left Behind Act or face sanctions that can range from offering school choice to state intervention. Adequate yearly progress, or AYP, is based on math and reading scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, test participation rates and attendance or graduation rates. The tests are counted in grades five, eight and 11.
Schools also are judged on the progress of subgroups -- such as racial groups, low-income students and special education students -- if there are at least 40 students in the subgroup in the building. So the number of targets varies from school to school and district to district.
Such gains won't be easy to reproduce next year. This year's and last year's academic standards -- 35 percent of students adjudged proficient or better in math and 45 percent in reading or significant growth -- will be raised next year: 45 percent proficient in math and 54 percent in reading.
Barnes emphasized, "We're making progress."
He noted improvements, particularly in fifth- and eighth-grade PSSA scores.
Even some officials in schools that are struggling tried to put the best light on the results.
"Overall, we see we are making progress," said Duquesne Superintendent Jacquelyn Webb.
The Duquesne district is the only district in Allegheny County on the second year of corrective action, the most serious classification. The state Education Department has done a study of the district and within the next few months is expected to release recommendations on what should be done.
Webb was encouraged that some of the adequate yearly progress targets were met, including elementary school math, which met the standard by showing significant improvement. About 24 percent of fifth-graders are proficient in math.
"We're working very hard to make progress and to meet the standards," said Webb.
The Pittsburgh district overall met the targets for math and reading, but it fell short in some of the subgroups and in some schools.
Some other districts also missed the mark with subgroups, and whether they hit the AYP targets or not, all districts that had a large enough subgroup of black students to count had substantial achievement gaps between black and white students.
While last year's list focused only on schools, this year's list also named districts that missed targets.
Pittsburgh and 14 other districts in Allegheny County landed on the School Improvement I list, which means they missed the AYP target for two years and must make districtwide plans. In addition, Duquesne was on the more serious "corrective action" list, and Wilkinsburg was on the School Improvement II list, which also calls for planning. Five others were on a warning list.
In some districts, all of the schools made adequate yearly progress, but the district didn't. The reason for that is that typically some of the schools didn't have enough students to count in a subgroup, but the district as a whole did. In Hampton, for example, all of the schools made adequate yearly progress, but the district is on a warning list because it missed on math and reading scores for special education students.
The way special education students are counted is a sore spot for some school officials. Except for the most seriously disabled, special education students take the same test as other students in the grade level appropriate to their age, not their instruction level.
For districts in Allegheny County making the school improvement lists, one of the most common problems was failing to meet at least one target for special education students.
Keystone Oaks landed on the School Improvement I list because it missed all four special education targets, math and reading scores as well as test participation in both.
William Urbanek, Keystone Oaks assistant superintendent, said special education students have individualized education plans that should be used as a measure of academic progress.
He said the district would have cleared the test participation mark for special education students if just three or four more had taken the test, but he said some refused.
"I'm not alarmed at this," he said. "We are meeting the targets for performance, participation and attendance in all other areas," he said.

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I went to a townhall meeting regarding the No Child Left Behind act and was shocked at how misrepresented it is! Most of the points in the act itself were already on the books, but noone was following through! It really isn't the groundbreaking idea everyone plays it out to be.
Common sense. Find out what is wrong, find out how to measure it, make changes, give parents more choices, and hold teachers and administrators accountable.
I think the biggest opponents are the teachers unions. There are a lot of bad teachers who don't care about the students one way or the other. All they want to do is pass off the low scoring ones to the next teacher. At least when I was teaching a couple years ago that was the case.
I am hoping that the in-fighting in the NYC schools will end between the union and the school chancelor so they can begin to fix up the mess that the city public schools are in.
as for no child left behind, I am reading test scores and stats on these posts. Meanwhile almost every kid I ever work with IS left behind, and I am not talking about kids that are not good at a subject, I am talkign about seventeed year olds about to get their GED who cannot read enough to find thier way through a bus station.
Why are these kids not counted on the test results? Simple. They are not tested. A growing trend in these parts are kids who have behaviors and are not academically ALTERNATIVE school. A lot of these schools are non profit, but not involved with the state and some are funded by the state, but not from education, from juvenile reform system funds. so there you have it. Change things around a little bit, and you can really change those test results. Interesting.
We need to overhaul our school systems. I feel ashamed when I see my european cousins who know three languages and know American history WAY better that I do. They learned it all in their public school systems. They say it is commomplace there for kids to speak two languages, it is a fact of life, learned in school.
so the question must be asked, "IS our children learning?" LOL
We also have to find a way to get parents more involved. But you are right... In too many cases the school is a place to babysit and parents don't care. Our attitudes and values in the country have got to turn around. We are doing a disservice to these children who are going to HAVE to compete GLOBALLY for a job.
Taking competition out of schools, and all the "politically correct" garbage are just a couple of other issues I have with Govt. schools.
We have great schools in my county here in GA. But I will still cough up 14/15 thousand a year to send my two little ones to a private school. It's just too important not to do EVERYTHING I can to give them an advantage.
If the teachers are bad, how can you expect them to teach the students well?
I know this is only a portion of the problem, but it is still part of the problem, especially in NYC.
I say, if the teachers do not want to take continuing education, and get re-evaluated every two years, then they should not be teachers.
I agree. In addition to the problems you mentioned, the teacher's unions object to basic math and reading skills testing for students, claiming that it forces them to "teach to the test" rather than employing more "creative" methodology. I submit, however, that if our children cannot pass basic skills tests, whatever methods are being used are simply not working. I believe we DO need to get back to the basics of teaching good, strong fundamental skills before we need to worry about branching off into the more creative areas of education.
I grew up in a very strong support structure in my home, where my parents made sure that I did my homework and that I studied, but today it seems that many parents find alternative ways of doing this with their children, with some just ignoring it altogether.
No amount of money from the government going to the schools can combat this problem.
I agree with you-the thing is though that we just can't keep passing these kids through school without knowing how to read, write, add and subtract or the cycle will just be repeated. I don't blame the teachers for not being able to reach every kid, but I do think that the worst performing schools should have to at least show progress. These aren't ridiculously high standards-if I remember correctly from the article, I think only 35-45% of the students have to be able to pass a basic skills test in order for the school to be in compliance. More than 55% failing on basic skills cannot all be blamed on the parents, I don't think. It can be done-I know one excellent teacher who is doing it in one of the worst neighborhoods imaginable. I've asked her how she does it-she gets performance from her students quite simply because she expects it-that's apparently a novel concept to a lot of these kids.
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