Wisconsin State Journal (Wisconsin) June 10, 2009

HEADLINE:  Elementary Schools on List Come as ‘No Shock'

By Gayle Worland



For the first time, two Madison elementary schools face sanctions for failing to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards.

Leopold and Lincoln fell short of the federal law's criteria for "adequate yearly progress" for the second year in a row, marking them as "schools identified for improvement," or SIFI. The SIFI list targets schools that miss the same testing benchmark, such as reading scores among economically disadvantaged students, for two or more consecutive years.

Under the sanctions, the schools will have to review their school improvement plans, offer more academic services outside of the regular school day and allow parents to transfer their child to any public school within the School District where space allows. Students performing poorly on statewide tests would get first preference to transfer.

The district would have to pay the students' transportation costs out of Title I funds, federal dollars targeted to schools with high poverty rates, said Steve Hartley, chief of staff for the Madison School District.

Based on data released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Instruction, Cherokee Middle School, Toki Middle School and East High School also remain on the federal list of schools in need of improvement but will not face sanctions because, unlike Leopold and Lincoln, they don't receive Title I money. La Follette and West high schools, also on the SIFI list, performed better than in the past and could move off the list if progress continues, Hartley said.

For the first time this year, Sennett and Whitehorse Middle Schools failed to meet the "adequate yearly progress" mark, as did Oregon High School.

For many, Spanish is first language

The rankings are based on test scores from the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE) and the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment for students with disabilities, multi-day tests given in November to students in third through eighth grade and grade 10. The schools are graded on participation rates and overall student test performance, attendance and graduation rates, plus test scores by individual subgroups broken down by race or ethnicity, income and disability.

Leopold Principal John Burkholder noted that test scores at Leopold failed standards in only two subgroups - English reading scores for English-language learners and Hispanic students, many of whom speak English as a second language.

The same phenomenon exists at her grade 3-5 school, said Lincoln Principal Deborah Hamilton.

"This was not a shock," Hamilton said. "I don't know why anyone with any sense would think that students who are in a bilingual program, and required to learn to read and write in Spanish, would be able to accomplish the same thing in English and do it in both languages in the same amount of time."

"Most of our parents understand our students are doing well" overall, Burkholder said. Still, being on the SIFI list "concerns me. For some people, that's all they know of our school. When you sit and look at the data, it may tell a somewhat different story. But we're working on it."

Statewide, an improvement from last year Teachers and staff at Memorial High School were "very happy and excited" by the news that Memorial came off the SIFI list this year, said Principal Bruce Dahmen. The victory came after staff brainstormed ways to increase students' chance of success, such as scheduling the most grueling parts of the test for early morning, when students were at their sharpest, and driving home the importance of taking the test seriously.

Administrators visited sophomore classes with the message "that we as a school and as a school district are being measured based on the academic performance of this test, and kind of built up the school spirit/school pride kind of thing," Dahmen said.

Statewide, 148 schools and four districts - Beloit, Kenosha, Manitowoc and Milwaukee - failed to meet adequate yearly progress goals, down from 156 schools and four districts, including Madison, last year. Seventy-nine Wisconsin schools were named to the SIFI list, 51 of them in Milwaukee.

Educators are increasingly discontented with the testing format required by the No Child Left Behind law, which takes a one-time snapshot of students' skills instead of measuring the progress they might make year to year. State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster noted in a statement that her agency "continues to work with national and congressional leaders to promote changes" in the law.

"Accountability is clearly important," Hartley said. "And we do need to show how kids are achieving. I just would look forward to having multiple ways of showing how kids achieve."