By Emily Sanderson — Oct. 7, 2009
Schools in Sanpete County recently received “report cards” based on student scores on curriculum referenced tests (CRTs), the standardized tests given each year to evaluate whether students learned the state core curriculum in various subjects and grades.
Although room for improvement always exists, Sanpete schools generally measure up on 2008-2009.
In Utah, CRTs are the primary yardstick for measuring compliance with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a federal law designed to encourage schools to continuously improve student performance.
The law states that by 2014, 100 percent of students must achieve a passing score on the tests used to measure NCLB compliance.
Under NCLB, schools must improve their performance from year to year in order to make what is called “adequate yearly progress” (AYP). If a school doesn’t make AYP, it is required to publicize its failings to parents.
If a school fails to make AYP for several consecutive years, parents ave a right to pull their children out of the school and send them to a different school — no questions asked.
The “report card” for each school breaks out scores for students in various groups, such as race, ethnicity, low-income status, disability status and English language proficiency. A certain percentage of students within each of these groups must achieve the required performance levels or the whole school fails to make AYP.
Many Sanpete teachers and administrators believe NCLB standards, including the goal of all students eventually passing all CRTs, is an impossible dream.
It is impossible to get all the students to perform at the same level,” said Principal Alan Peterson of Gunnison Valley Middle School. “We’re not dealing with nuts and bolts in a machine. We are dealing with the human mind.”
In middle schools where students attend for only two years, 50 percent of the school is comprised of new students each year, which makes it difficult to make a lot of progress with students who are struggling, particularly students with disabilities, said Superintendent Courtney Syme of North Sanpete School District.
“It’s difficult to promise that those kids will improve,” he said.
Each CRT taken by a student is scored on a 1-4 scale, with 1 representing minimal proficiency; 2, partial proficiency; 3, sufficient proficiency; and 4, substantial proficiency.
Scores of 1 and 2 are considered substandard. The 3 and 4 scores are “passing.” The accompanying chart shows the percentage of students in each school who scored a 3 or 4 and thus passed the test.
Under No Child Left Behind, the U.S. Department of Education gives a passing or failing grade to each school as a whole based on how many children in the school passed or failed the test.
In 2008-2009, an elementary or middle school needed 83 percent of students scoring 3s or 4s in language arts, while 45 percent had to reach those levels in math.
For a high school, the numbers were 82 percent in language arts and 40 percent in math.
Schools failing to meet those targets were reported as failing to make AYP.
Statewide, the number of elementary and middle schools that made the grade was up from 85 percent in the 2007-2008 school year to 91 percent in 2008-2009, although the number of high scools making declined from 94 percent in 2007-2008 to 84 percent in 2008-2009, according to the State Office of Education.
A majority of schools in Sanpete County that made AYP did so only because of the Safe Harbor clause of NCLB. If a subgroup within a school, or the whole school, does not meet a performance target, the school can still pass if the percentage of below-proficient students is down 10 percent compared to the previous year.
When a school relies on Safe Harbor, it suggests the school is still struggling to make the grade.
Three Sanpete schools passed without Safe Harbor in any subgroup: Gunnison Valley High, Ephraim Middle and Spring City Elementary.
[tables forthcoming]
