 |
|
|
||
|
MOBILE, Ala. -- Ten Mobile County public schools made a new state list for being among the worst in Alabama. One elementary school, seven middle schools and two special-education schools have been dubbed "persistently low achieving." Following new federal law, the state used a complicated formula to come up with the list. It factors standardized reading and mathematics test scores, graduation rates and other data over the past three years. All of the schools on the list serve populations poor enough that at least 35 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches. School districts can compete for up to $2 million per listed school to try to improve them. Alabama has a total of $58 million in federal school improvement grant money to divvy up, said Deann Stone, director of federal programs for the Alabama Department of Education. It's part of President Obama's effort to turn around the nation's worst 1,000 schools. No schools in Baldwin County made the list of 246 statewide. Mobile County, the state's largest school system, had the third-highest number of schools on the list. Birmingham City Schools, a system half the size of Mobile County's district, had three times as many listed. Montgomery County had 19. The state said the formula was so confusing that it initially included some of the wrong schools in a list published online. After the Press-Register raised questions earlier this week about why some local schools that aren't traditionally considered low-performing were on the list, the state recalculated the data and took five Mobile County schools off. The standards are similar to those under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but schools did not benefit from a handful of exemptions they are normally allowed. Martha Peek, deputy superintendent for the Mobile County Public School System, said district officials are analyzing data and trying to figure out specifically why each school made the list. She said Mobile County will apply for school-improvement grant money. Most likely that money would be used to provide professional development for teachers. "We are confident that we can address the needs and move on," Peek said. Peek questioned the inclusion of two schools on the list, Augusta Evans School and the Continuous Learning Center, which serve only special-education students, who tend to score lower on standardized tests. Chastang Middle School in Mobile's Trinity Gardens community made the list. There, only 58 percent of the eighth-graders passed the state's math test and 60 percent passed reading. That's compared to the state average of 74 percent and 75 percent, respectively. Sonya Floyd, who has been Chastang's principal for three years, said she's noticed some improvement at the school since she arrived - students behaving more in the hallways and doing better academically. Chastang provides extra tutoring during the school day, after school and on Saturdays. But, she said, there's more work to be done. "We now have teaching and learning from bell to bell," Floyd said. "We've got some strategies that are working. I think that the kids are making strides." Another school on the list, Scarborough Middle School in northwest Mobile, had even lower test scores. Forty-three percent of the eighth-graders there passed the math test, and 47 percent passed reading. The school has after-school tutoring and pulls aside its most struggling students for intervention during the school day. "We always look at what our deficiencies are and we make our greatest effort to improve them," said Scarborough Principal Jason Laffitte. |
||||
|
|
||||