Casper Star-Tribune (Casper, WY)
July 19, 2011
Headline: Fewer schools meet federal goals

By Jackie Borchardt

CASPER, Wyo. - Test scores have increased in the past two years, but fewer Wyoming schools and districts are meeting federal education benchmarks.

A total of 101 schools and eight districts in 2010-11 did not make "adequate yearly progress," or AYP, toward the goal of every student performing at a proficient level as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. In 2009-10, 97 schools and five districts did not make AYP.

Math, reading and writing scores on the Proficiency Assessments for Wyoming Students, or PAWS, factor into AYP. A school or district can miss AYP by failing to test a certain percentage of students or to meet the proficiency target for all students and individual student subgroups on state tests.

The percentage of students testing proficient or advanced boomed since 2008-09, but targets increased across the board this year - 12.7 percentage points for elementary level math. Targets will increase every year, reaching 100 percent in every area in 2014.

Educators have criticized the targets as being unrealistic and unobtainable. Neighboring states Montana, South Dakota and Idaho have told the U.S. Department of Education they won't raise targets that would label more schools "failing."

The Wyoming Department of Education has no plans to opt out of No Child Left Behind, wrote John Masters, legal counsel to the state superintendent of public instruction, in an email to the Star-Tribune on Tuesday.

Schools and districts that do not make AYP are marked as needing improvement and could possibly receive "corrective action" or be restructured.

After the disastrous 2010 administration of PAWS, the state Education Department requested and was granted a waiver from AYP calculations. Schools and districts were evaluated using test scores from 2008-09 and the most recent graduation rates at the high school level.

Two years ago, the Natrona County School District was on track to climb out of improvement status. Schools and groups of lower-scoring students improved in 2009-10 according to many measures, including PAWS.

But the one-year freeze on AYP and a higher bar meant that improvement would never appear on a federal report card.

District students on individual education plans through the special education department failed to meet the targets at the elementary, middle and high school levels in 2009-10.

The number of those students testing proficient or advanced has increased greatly since 2008, said Mike Flicek, director of assessment and research for the Natrona County district. For example, only 32.5 percent of fifth-graders on individual education plans tested proficient or advanced in math. In 2009-10, 53 percent of fifth-graders in that category tested proficient and advanced.

At the middle level, the English language learner and free or reduced lunch groups missed the targets. At the high school level, the district failed to pass enough students, period, in language arts.

Federal money is allocated to schools that serve high populations of poor or at-risk students through the Title I program. The district's improvement status means some of the money that would have gone to individual schools will be spent on districtwide programs, Flicek said.

"We can put it to use more broadly," Flicek said. "We can put trainings in place that all schools benefit from more than just the Title I schools."

None of the district's Title I elementary schools is in the improvement category. Three of the four schools that moved out of warning status from 2008-09 and 2009-10 receive Title I funds dedicated to closing the achievement gap between low-income and higher-income groups of students.

"In the past, it might have been that money was helpful in preventing the gap from getting larger, but the gap wasn't necessarily narrowing," Flicek said. "But what we're seeing now is the gap is narrowing."

The test results for subgroups also vary from year to year due to the makeup of the student body. Park Elementary School was on warning for students on individual education plans in 2008-09, and staff members planned improvement for those specific students, said Principal Doris Waddell.

Park enrolled fewer students on plans in 2010-11 and the school met the AYP targets.

"What we're doing appears to be working with our IEP students, and that's very intentional work one on one with a teacher or assistant," Waddell said.