City school officials say accreditation not In danger
Federal Progress Standards Missed at Several Schools
By Bobbi Mlynar
Thursday, September 27, 2007
School district officials are confident that accreditation for local schools will continue, despite some schools’ failure to meet Adequate Yearly Progress standards mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.
Efforts continue to improve students’ test scores in general and at Emporia Middle School and in reading at Emporia High School, according to district officials.
Turning Point Learning Center and Emporia Middle School both failed to meet AYP in both reading and mathematics. Emporia High School did not meet AYP in reading. All other schools achieved AYP in both subjects.
Test results were released by the Emporia district at a school board meeting in August and were announced officially by the Kansas State Department of Education on Sept. 11.
Emporia Middle School’s failure to reach AYP in both tests does not yet put the school in jeopardy of losing accreditation from the Kansas State Department of Education, according to Heim.
“The high school’s not in any danger,” Heim said. “There is potential at the middle school that that could happen in (five) years. ...Our state has adapted the rules of No Child Left Behind to our accreditation process and the key is adapted, not adopted. If a school doesn’t make AYP ... for a certain number of years, then they are not accredited.”
Heim said that nothing will happen if EMS fails to meet AYP next year.
“If they don’t make it a third time, then they become conditionally accredited,” he said.
Five consecutive years of failing to make AYP would cause a loss of accreditation, according to Abel.
“We’ve been No Child Left Behind for five years, and there are schools (outside the Emporia district) now who are going to be approaching that non-accredited status,” Heim said.
He said, however, that so far the state has not defined sanctions or remedies for a Kansas school under those circumstances.
“The state’s never non-accredited a school, so the state board is going to have to make some decisions on what happens,” he said. “... The state board in dealing with this for 15 years still has not set consequences.”
The time likely is approaching when those will be needed, he said.
“We will know in the next couple of years, because it’s going to happen to somebody,” he said.
“It’s not going to happen to us, unless they change the law,” Abel added.
Because the state has not provided consequences for non-accreditation, the men could not speculate on what might happen if a school became non-accredited.
“For a high school losing accreditation, there’s consequences in there for the students,” Heim said. The students may not be able to go on to higher education at some institutions.
The Emporia district is not facing that situation, and its leaders believe the EMS’s AYP scores will be back within the required percentages next year.
“We think we’ll see some improvement next year,” Heim said. “We think we’re going to make it. When we looked at the scores this year, it was close.”
Turning Point failed not because of test scores, but because of a small number of students whose parents did not want them to take the test.
A mandated percentage of students must take the test for the school to qualify.
“Parents have the right to say, ‘We do not want our kids tested,’ and because they have so few students” the school did not meet AYP percentage requirement for test-takers in either category, according to George Abel, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning.
The district as a whole made AYP in mathematics, but did not meet AYP on reading tests.
Other districts in the state that did not make AYP included Wichita, Dodge City, Leavenworth, Lawrence, Kansas City, Topeka, Chase County, and El Dorado.
The testing is required by the No Child Left Behind Act, which sets ever-rising success percentages that must be met annually. Every student in every school nationwide must meet or exceed those standards by 2013.
Test scores overall at EHS showed that the “all students” group reached its mandated performance standard in both reading and math.
Subgroups, however, also must make AYP. Without success from all subgroups identified within the school, a school cannot make AYP.
Superintendent John Heim said that No Child Left Behind identifies nine separate subgroups. Larger school district are more likely to have multiple subgroups, while smaller districts may not have any subgroups.
The subgroups are students receiving free or reduced-price lunches, students with disabilities, English language learners, African-Americans, Hispanics, whites, Asian/Pacific Islanders, American Indians and multi-ethnic.
While most schools may have some students in each category, a subgroup must have at least 30 students before its scores are considered in AYP figures.
At EHS, two subgroups — free and reduced-price lunch students and Hispanics — did not meet AYP in reading; consequently, the school as a whole did not meet AYP.
All EHS subgroups met AYP in math.
Emporia Middle School’s “all students” score did meet AYP in reading, but two subgroups — students with disabilities and English language learners — did not.
“All students,” as well as most subgroups, failed to meet AYP in math. The two subgroups that did meet AYP were Hispanics and whites.
The district already has created a District Improvement Plan as part of its solution to meeting AYP, and has brought in a new curriculum, Literacy First, for improving reading.
Heim said that the district currently is looking at a similar program for the math curriculum. The district also has begun to define what youngsters need to, and should, know to function successfully after graduation.
“What we have is a mathematics curriculum that’s structured toward getting a smaller group of kids being well-trained in math,” Heim said. “We’ve never really set down and said, ‘This is what all kids should know in math,’ and I think that’s hurting us.”
Continual monitoring of progress and needs of individual students in literacy has brought about improvements in elementary grades and has allowed teachers and aides to focus their attentions on the specific strengths and weaknesses of each child.
“We’re doing little thing to change the way they teach and it’s really made a difference in the way it’s engaging the students,” Heim said.
He added that the federal government has done a good job as acting as a clearing house for school districts looking for ways to improve students’ educations.
A variety of programs that have been tested, researched, and proven effective are listed by the department of education to help districts choose the best programs to consider for the needs of the district.
slipandslide (anonymous) says...
with so many years for the schools to meet these basic achievment scores, why cant they pass these test? if some parents choose not to have their kids tested, and that causes everyones scores to be lower, how can they be allowed not to test? on the bright side, if the middle school gets closed down, there will be an empty building we can use for something more productive and a bunch of people move out of town because there is no middle school, emporia would be a nice little town to live in again.
September 27, 2007 at 4:41 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Bigearl2 (anonymous) says...
You think so !
September 27, 2007 at 8:52 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
If there is no middle school, or any school, you can start installing bars on your windows and doors because that is where a lack of Education leads. Them that ain't got no smarts are gonna want what you got.
“We’ve never really set down and said, ‘This is what all kids should know in math,’ and I think that’s hurting us.” (Heim)
I have a problem with this. The state curriculum has a set of Standards and Benchmarks and Indicators that sets down exactly what all kids should know in math. That's why they call them Standards. Isn't Emporia using state standards?
Another question: Of the parents who refused for their children to be tested, to what sub-group did the students belong? I have a problem with parents refusing for their kids to take the test especially if I'm paying for their educations.
I firmly believe that the NCLB Act will be modified before long. Many lawmakers have begun to realize that "Every student in every school nationwide must meet or exceed those standards by 2013" is not logically possible. This was Bush's baby and it was based on the Houston model. We have since learned that that model was flawed.
In Houston, on testing day, officials would tell certain students to stay home. Only scores of those present that day were tallied. This was the plan of the superintendent of Houston who eventually became the Secretary of Education when Bush became president. I remember when the super was interviewed on "60 Minutes" about the scoring method. That was a mess of denials.
Teachers are educated and trained in our town. I remember when the GPA requirement for teachers was raised and I was grateful for that. Schools are upon what we base our future as a country.
September 28, 2007 at 9:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
outsidethebox (anonymous) says...
If the middel school closes maybe it can be turned into an apartment complex for the Somalis?
September 28, 2007 at 4:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
I give up.
September 28, 2007 at 8:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )