Greenville News October 1, 2008

HEADLINE: Higher Bar Means More Schools Didn't Make Adequate Yearly Progress

By Ron Barnett

At the halfway point of a 12-year forced march toward the day when federal law requires that all children be "proficient" in reading and math, four out of five of the state's schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress, according to figures released this morning.

But state and local education officials said the benchmark has become more a measure of the failure of the federal accountability law than a measure of school performance. It dumps schools into the "not met AYP" column if just one of more than 20 demographic subgroups of students in a school didn't score well enough.

The target scores for elementary and middle school students jumped by more than 50 percent this year, resulting in a corresponding decrease in the number of schools that made AYP.

That caused some schools that improved their scores on the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test to fall into the "not met" group for the first time.

"Unless NCLB's rating system is revised to incorporate a more commonsense approach, the danger is that this law will lose all credibility with the public," said state Superintendent of Education Jim Rex. "That would really be disappointing because its goals are so admirable."

The state Department of Education delayed the release of AYP figures for high schools after several school districts raised objections about the reported graduation rate and the state found computation errors.

In Greenville County, only 10 out of 70 schools made AYP this year, with one of those being a charter school. Last year 22 schools made it, not counting high schools.

"It's like working in an organization and telling everybody in the organization that they're failing, they're not doing any good, when day after day they're doing everything they can do," said Jason McCreary, the school district's testing czar.

South Carolina, according to several national studies, has among the highest standards in the country, which means that schools here that don't make AYP would fare well in states such as Texas with lower requirements.

"Because of these standards, it's like telling BMW that they're not producing a precision and performance vehicle, that they need to step it up."

No Child Left Behind allows each state to set its own definition of "proficient" but requires that all demographic groups in all schools -- including children who live in poverty, speak little English or have learning disabilities -- to meet that level by 2014.

The state this spring will start using a new test, the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards, as its measuring stick instead of the PACT. But it hasn't been determined what score students will need to make to be considered proficient, according to Dana Yow, a spokeswoman for the state Education Oversight Committee.

Critics were quick to use the report as evidence that the public school system is seriously flawed.

"When four in five public schools are failing to meet minimum progress goals we are in big trouble," said Randy Page, president of the conservative think tank South Carolinians for Responsible Government.

"Half of our high school students don't graduate and the other half earn some of the nation's lowest average SAT and ACT scores. Now the politicians and bureaucrats in Columbia are blaming everyone but themselves."

Title 1 schools, which get federal funding for having large numbers of low-income students, face sanctions for repeatedly failing to make AYP. After two years of not making it, they have to offer their students the opportunity to transfer to another school -- one that did make AYP -- with the district providing transportation.

Those that fail to make it three years in a row also have to offer tutoring or other individual educational services through state-approved private companies. Eventually, they could be forced to fire teachers and principals or close.

With this year's report, four Greenville County schools had failed to meet AYP for two years in a row for the first time -- Welcome, Cherrydale and Thomas Kerns elementary schools and Fuller Normal Charter School.

Altogether, 14 schools in Greenville County face some sanction for repeatedly not making AYP.