On Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reported that more than half of the state's schools failed to meet federal testing targets.?? This isn't a widespread indictment of the performance of public schools, however.?? As No Child Left Behind's 2014 deadline for all students to reach proficiency looms nearer and expectations are ratcheted up, it is becoming harder and harder for school's to meet ???adequate yearly progress??? (AYP) targets.?? As the Tribune pointed out, even ???academic powerhouses??? are failing to meet federal muster:
New Trier, among the state's best schools by virtually any measure, posted some of its highest scores ever on the college-entrance ACT test, which comprises half of the Prairie State Achievement Exam given to juniors. But the performance of a small group of students, those with learning disabilities, fell short of the testing target???
We're seeing similar results here in Ohio.?? If Buckeye State schools miss AYP goals for two consecutive years, they are placed in ???School Improvement Status.????? Under NCLB, they must send letters to parents notifying them of the school's status (and offering the student an opportunity to enroll in a non-school-improvement-status building).??But these are hardly schools from which families should want to flee.?? Of the schools newly placed in School Improvement Status in 2010, fully 66 percent are rated A+, A, or B by the state.
As the Tribune reported, ???The sweeping designation muddies the issue for parents trying to make sense of it all, and threatens to make the federal standard irrelevant.???
Other states are certainly facing similar trends. Now it's just a matter of time before one of several things happens: ESEA is reauthorized to lift the 2014 goal, states create some kind of opt-out provision for otherwise high-performing schools who slip into corrective action, or parents and the community at large simply stop taking accountability seriously at all.
- Emmy Partin
