Brattleboro Reformer (Vermont) March 25, 2009

HEADLINE: Nine schools in county did not meet goals

By Howard Weiss-Tisman

BRATTLEBORO -- Windham County schools showed mixed results in Tuesday's report with nine of the 32 public schools in the county's four supervisory unions failing to show progress on the standardized tests that were given in the fall of 2008.

The U.S. Department of Education wants every single child in America to perform at grade level by 2014.

And with Vermont on Tuesday releasing this year's accountability determinations as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, education officials from Brattleboro to Montpelier are rapping the federal law as being unrealistic and inaccurate.

Students in grades three through eight and 11 took the New England Common Assessment Program tests in math and English.

Statewide, 88 schools, or 29 percent, did not make adequate yearly progress.

"It's a noble goal but the reality is that expecting 100 percent of the students to be proficient is not realistic," said Department of Education assessments director Gail Taylor. "The target goes up every year and it gets more challenging."

The federal law requires schools to show progress every year, and with No Child Left Behind now in its seventh year, some schools are starting to appear off and on the annual list.

Brattleboro Union High School failed to show progress a few years ago, received aid from the state and then showed improvement and was taken off the list.

This year, BUHS again did not make AYP because students with disabilities and students who received free and reduced lunches did not show improvement over last year.

"It's very frustrating," said BUHS Principal Jim Day. "We're not testing the same students every year and we have to test and teach the students we are given."

Another school in Windham Southeast, Academy School, worked hard to raise the test scores and the students on the lower end of the spectrum showed improvement, while the scores overall inched up.

But a last minute switch in how the scores for the district's most disabled students were distributed brought the whole school's average down and Academy is now entering its first year of corrective action for failing to show progress two years in a row.

"Academy made significant gains this year, with kids on the higher and lower ends, and we're proud of the work that was done there," said Windham Southeast Superintendent Ron Stahley. "But the system is flawed and like we are seeing across the state, the number of schools that fail to make progress is increasing, and will continue to increase."

WSESU Curriculum Director Paul Smith agreed that while it is clear that the most disabled students require specialized services to show improvement, at the same time it is unfair to list a school as failing for not being able to have students perform at grade level.

"That is a major flaw that has to be corrected," Smith said. "It doesn't make sense to me. Those kids are moving up but they are not there yet."

The bar is raised every three years as schools inch toward 2014, the year the U.S Department of Education expects everyone to be at grade level.

The next increase is in 2011 and Smith said many more schools are going to fail to show progress as the standard is raised.

"It would be great if everybody was above average but that's not how it is," Smith said. "To hold those groups of kids that have significant disabilities to the same standard is unrealistic."

Bellows Falls Union High School was also on technical assistance in the past and the staff there received extensive training to help improve test scores.

This year the school did improve its scores in every category, but the school fell below the state's graduation rate threshold last year.

The federal education law uses graduation rates, as well as test scores, to grade high schools.

But only students who graduate in four years are counted, even though BFUHS, and schools like it all over the country, routinely sees students who need four and a half or five years to graduate.

BFUHS Principal Chris Hodsden said he handed out a diploma Tuesday to a student who needed an extra semester to graduate, even though that student counted against the school's 2008 graduation rate.

BFUHS had 12 students who needed extra time to finish their classes, while 77 graduated, and if those students were given the extra time, the school would have made AYP this year.

"Some kids need extra time and there is not a single person I talk to who would say a fifth year is a bad thing," Hodsden said. "The problem is it is all driven by NCLB and bureaucracy often lacks common sense."