Greensboro News & Record July 26, 2007

HEADLINE: More Schools Reach Yearly Testing Goals

By Morgan Jose

More Guilford County schools met federal testing goals in 2006-07 than during the previous school year, according to preliminary results released by the district Wednesday.

Roughly 49 percent of district schools made Adequate Yearly Progress, compared to 44.4 percent in 2006. This increase comes after state education officials revised high school math, reading and science tests to make them more difficult for students to pass.

"It was good to have more schools make AYP in a year when the state raised the bar," Superintendent Terry Grier said.

Grier said district officials are still identifying schools that might make AYP, including Washington Elementary, Dudley High and the Middle College at N.C. A&T.

So far:

* 53.8 percent of elementary schools made AYP, a 4.6 percent increase from the past year.

* 33.3 percent of middle schools made AYP, a 4.7 percent increase.

* 56.5 percent of high schools made AYP, an 8.9 percent increase.

Guilford County Schools did not release the actual number of schools making AYP. It does not plan to provide school-by-school data until after the N.C. Department of Public Instruction verifies it in mid-August, Grier said. He hesitated to attribute some schools' success to certain initiatives until the results are final.

"We've learned some hard lessons when the state verifies the data," Grier said. "You can say too much too soon."

Students and teachers attending Washington Elementary, Wiley Elementary and Ferndale Middle are waiting to find out if those schools still face restructuring of their curricula and staff because of failure to meet testing goals over the past four years.

If the schools make AYP this year, they would need one more year of acceptable scores to remove themselves from a federal sanctions list. If they don't make AYP, they will be reconstituted during the 2008-09 school year.

Grier has asked for about $194,000 in his 2007-08 budget to fund initial reconstitution efforts, including a Montessori program at Washington and a pre-International Baccalaureate program at Ferndale.