Elephant’s Fork Elementary is a fully-accreditated school. So you may be scratching your head wondering why in heck the school is on a list that designates it as one of the lowest performing schools in the state. You read about it in the morning paper and something’s not making sense. This post is for a very quick clarification about the targets our schools are expected to hit.
In the world of measuring how schools are doing – there are two DIFFERENT accountability programs to which our schools must answer. The first target is for accreditation purposes by the Virginia Department of Education. This is the easiest of the two targets to hit because the pass rate is lower than that for the federal requirement, plus it ignores subgroup performance of students. (Examples of subgroups are white students, black students, and low socioeconomic status.)
The second target is for accountability purposes by the U.S. Department of Education. Under federal law, schools must meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for all students and select subgroups of students. And these targets get higher and higher as each year goes by.
Elephant’s Fork hit the targets for Virginia accreditation, but did not hit all of the higher targets for accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act.
Now here’s the interesting part. When school districts accept money from the federal government, there is an expectation to keep an eye on accountability. Yet keeping an eye on this is a silent issue in our district. Effective school research clearly reminds us that looking at student achievement by subgroups is one of the measures to determine whether or not a school is high quality. Even without No Child Left Behind assessments, this is data an effective school district would regularly review.
Let’s call for leadership to tighten up on looking at the achievement of subgroups to determine whether or not each and every school in the district – and the district itself – has learning for all. In the case of Elephant’s Fork Elementary, we need to ensure that the school has the aligned resources needed (not additional money) to help all students achieve at the highest level possible.
By the way, the school district also did not make AYP.
Does our community want our schools and district to make AYP?
1 comment:
As long as out schools attempt to bring all students along to the same level and at the same rate they can do nothing but fail. We need to have a school system that promotes education to a persons own level, not to some arbitrary measurement system. If a child is inclined to repair motorcycles, then they should have that chance. All kids to not desire nor need to prepare for college.
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