40% of schools fail test criteria

420 in state have to change course

— Nearly 40 percent of Arkansas’ 1,075 public schools have failed to meet minimum achievement requirements on state exams for at least two years and will have to offer tutoring, change curriculum, hire specialists, replace faculty or take other steps to raise scores.

The 420 affected schools are in districts across the state - all three Pulaski County districts, Fort Smith, Cabot, Conway, Blytheville, Springdale and, for the first time this year, Rogers School District.

Charter schools reached the list of needing improvement, including the Dreamland Academy in Little Rock. The state placed Little Rock Preparatory Academy and Jacksonville Lighthouse Academy on “alert” status after their initial year of operation, meaning that the schools will be placed in the improvement program if they don’t meet standards again in April 2011.

The total number of academically troubled schools placed in some phase of the state’s improvement program is up 18 from 402 schools in 2009.

The state classified 78 of this year’s 420 schools in the most serious “state directed” category because insufficient numbers of students failed to score at proficient, or grade level, on state Benchmark and End of-Course tests for six or more years.

State-directed schools are subject to greater Arkansas Department of Education involvement. There were 58 “state directed” schools in 2009, and 16 in 2008.

The percentages of students who must score at a proficient or better on state math and literacy tests increases every year.

This year, for example, at least 64.5 percent students at a school had to score at proficient or better in literacy and math. Next year the required percentage for meeting state requirements will be at least 73 percent.

“Obviously, it is becoming more and more difficult to make adequate yearly progress,” Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said Monday after the state released the 2010 report on school performance.

“We know our school districts and schools are working hard to make sure children have the best possible opportunity to achieve proficiency.They are not doing it to avoid a label, but because they know the best thing for each child, as well as for the state as a whole, is for all students to graduate equipped with the skills and knowledge it takes to succeed in today’s world.”

Arkansas tests students and labels schools and school districts to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002.

That law calls for all students to achieve at their grade level on state math and literacy tests by 2013-14 regardless of race, ethnicity, poverty level, disability or language barriers.

A school in which the student body or one or more student subgroups fails to meet achievement standards for two consecutive years is placed in the state’s improvement program. In the first year, identified schools must provide tutoring or allow students to transfer to higher-performing schools.

The penalties and demands on a school escalate the longer the school remains in the improvement program.

The state Education Department evaluates schools based on the achievement levels of the entire student body and six subpopulations: white, black, Hispanic, disabled, poor and students who are not native English speakers. Forty or more students constitute a subgroup.

Arkansas’ Smart Accountability program, put into place two years ago, has refined the way the state differentiates among schools based on student performance.

Schools in which 25 percent or fewer of its subpopulation groups don’t meet achievement standards land in the “targeted improvement” category. Resources are directed to helping those students become proficient, said Julie Johnson Thompson, a spokesman for state Education Department.

Once a school is placed on the state improvement list, it must meet state standards for two consecutive years to be removed from it.

If more than 25 percent of the subpopulation groups or the student body as a whole falls short of state requirements for two or more years, the school is placed in the category of “whole school improvement” and resources from the school district and state are directed accordingly.

Schools may hire school improvement companies to provide teacher training and other help in raising achievement. Many schools have begun giving students interim tests during the school year to assess skills and address deficiencies before the Benchmark and End of Course tests each April.

A school district with a school that is chronically under-achieving and in the state-directed category must take steps such as replacing the principal if the principal has been at the campus for an extended period or hire a school-improvement specialist to assist the principal.

In other cases, a school can become a conversion charter school or more than half of the faculty can be replaced.

In the Little Rock School District, the state’s largest, 28 of 42 campuses are in various phases of school improvement.

But 10 of the 28 campuses met achievement standards on the 2010 tests and, if they repeat that feat next April, they will be removed from the state’s school-improvement list, said Dennis Glasgow, the district’s interim superintendent for accountability.

Two of those schools that met standards - McClellan High and Forest Heights Middle School - are in state directed status. Two other schools, Booker Magnet and Wakefield elementaries, were removed from the improvement list.

“There’s not one thing in common in all those schools,”Glasgow said. “There was not one program that is responsible for the growth. I think it is the principal and the teachers in each of the schools. They got in gear and got with it.”

McClellan has been on the improvement list for at least six years. In that time, the school didn’t even meet the threshold requirement of having 95 percent of eligible students take the required state tests.

Much changed for this past testing season, McClellan’s new principal Marvin Burton said.

Ninety-eight percent of the students showed up for the 11th grade literacy test, as did about 96 percent for the algebra I test. And the school met the state achievement standard through the “safe harbor” provision.

A school makes “safe harbor” when it reduces the number of students scoring below proficient levels by at least 10 percent. A school making safe harbor is considered to have met state achievement standards even if its percentages of students scoring at grade level or proficient remains short of the state minimum requirement.

The school had a 23 percent growth on that 11th grade literacy test, 15 percent growth in algebra I and 12 percent grown in geometry, Burton said.

Burton said he and his staff steered the school around by committing themselves to the tenets of the America’s Choice model for school improvement with all of its training for teachers. America’s Choice is a company that helps schools.

The staff also “drilled” into data to identify the academic needs of each student, teach to those needs and track progress, Burton said.

“We are a high-needs school, but we had teachers willing to buy into the program and students willing to give their best,” Burton said, adding that parent support and community help in providing students with attendance incentives also helped.

“A lot of people don’t think that an education can be obtained in the southern part of the city. We are trying to dispel a negative myth,” Burton said.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

2010 school improvement status

The successes last year have already begun to pay off for the school and its students. Last spring, students earned triple the number of scholarships in the previous year. Of the 135 students in the class, 111 were offered a total of $1.06 million. The school’s enrollment has grown this year from 770 to 965 students.

In the West Memphis School District, the Wonder and Weaver elementary schools were removed from the state list, and two more - including West Memphis High - will be removed next year if they meet standards again.

“There’s no secret to it,” Superintendent Bill Kessinger said about the successes. “Teachers have challenged themselves, and they are meeting the challenge and they are working hard. That’s the key. They want off the list. They are tired of it and they are working hard.”

West Memphis has three schools that are on the state’s list for needing improvement that didn’t meet standards this year.

“They are working just as hard,” Kessinger said about the faculty at those campuses. “We have two schools - East and Wonder junior highs - that made ‘safe harbor’ but they got hit on attendance,” meaning attendance rates fell below state required levels.

“They gained enough on academic growth but they missed the attendance requirement by a tenth of a percentage point. I think attendance will pick up next year.”

This year, for the first time, two Rogers schools landed on the list because of low test scores over the past five years. Kirksey Middle School made the list because of low scores in literacy for students with disabilities. Elmwood Middle School made the list because too many students with disabilities scored low in both math and literacy.

“In most areas we are exceeding expectations and our students are outperforming the state and the nation, said Phil Eickstaedt, executive director for secondary curriculum and instruction in Rogers. “But we have more work to do to increase achievement for students with disabilities and in the area of literacy in general.”

Nine of the 26 schools in the Fort Smith School District are on the state’s improvement program this year.

Superintendent Benny Gooden said all nine of those schools showed improvement in tests last spring, but they must show improvement for two years to be removed from the list.

“Whether the system isconvoluted or not, I think that shows we’re responding to it,” Gooden said. “We’re going to do the best job we can every day for every child. We were trying to leave no child behind way before somebody thought this up.”

Gooden has been a critic of parts of the accountability system.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with setting the goal that we want everybody proficient in math and literacy by 2013. ... But you certainly don’t line up and whip the whole class because they don’t make it,” adding that that’s what the system is doing to schools.

Information for this article was contributed by Bill Bowden of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/02/2010

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