Nc Dept Of Public Instruction

NC parents see school annual progress data slide

The state's 115 local school districts released information required by the decade-old federal No Child Left Behind law to measure the reading and mathematics abilities of students every year.

Statewide totals won't be available for two weeks, but the preliminary schoolhouse data show fewer than three of 10 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools met the targets set for them in the academic year that concluded in June. Fewer than one in seven Wake County schools met their mark. More than half of the state's 99 charter schools missed targets, double the number who failed to meet them last year.

The reasons behind the failing grades have generated pressure for change in state capitols across the country. The Obama Administration has said that unless Congress acts soon, Education Secretary Arne Duncan would act to avert a "slow-motion train wreck" for U.S. schools.

North Carolina's disappointing data was at least in part because last year saw a big jump in the target scores and because the federal law requires schools to meet all of their goals or they're deemed to have fallen short, state officials said.

All public school children are required to perform at grade level three years from now.

"Every state had to set a stair of steps to get to 100 percent of students being proficient," said Lou Fabrizio, the chief testing director for the Department of Public Instruction. "Every three years that stair step got higher. This is the first year of a major bump up."

Last school year's proficiency targets for students in grades 3-8 rose to 72 percent reading at grade level from 43 percent, and jumped to 89 percent to meet math standards from 77 percent . For 10th graders, 69 percent must be proficient in reading and 84 percent in mathematics. The 10th grade targets in the 2009-10 academic year were for a school to show 38 percent of students proficient in reading and 68 percent in math.

Every school's performance also is tracked by the achievement of students grouped by race, family income, disability, and limited-English speakers. Proficiency targets must be met by each of the subgroups represented at the school, or the entire school is judged to have failed.

This all-or-nothing feature of the No Child Left Behind law guarantees fewer schools will earn the stamp of meeting all annual improvement targets, state schools superintendent June Atkinson said.

Five Rowan schools meet AYP goals | Salisbury, NC - Salisbury Post

By Sarah Campbell

scampbell@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Five of the Rowan-Salisbury School System’s 35 schools met Adequate Yearly Progress, the reading and mathematics accountability standard required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

That’s down from 18 schools that met the standard last year, but district officials say the results can’t be compared because tougher performance standards put in place this year led to fewer schools meeting the goals.

“This is a transitional year and therefore, the AYP results cannot be compared with results from previous years,” Rowan-Salisbury Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom said in a press release.

The Rowan-Salisbury schools that met AYP this year are Enochville, Faith and Millbridge elementary and Jesse Carson High and Rowan County Early College.

No schools in the Kannapolis City school district made AYP. Six of the district’s eight schools met their goals last year.

The preliminary results were released by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction on Thursday.

A closer look

Millbridge Elementary will now exit school improvement status after meeting AYP for two consecutive years.

Millbridge principal David Miller said he is proud of the achievements of the school.

"These results demonstrate a commitment and hard work of staff, teachers, parents and parent / teacher associations," he said in a press release. "It's a team effort working with students to be able to achieve this success.”

If a Title I school does not make AYP in the same subject for two consecutive years, the school enters School Improvement status. All Rowan-Salisbury elementary schools are Title I schools.

China Grove, Granite Quarry, Hurley, Knollwood, Mt. Ulla and North Rowan elementary schools along with Kannapolis’ Forest Park Elementary will enter School Improvement.

The schools will have to offer special tutoring services and school choice, which allows students to transfer to another school.

School choice will not be offered in Kannapolis because no other schools made AYP.

Knox North Rowan Middle and High are the only schools in the district of Salisbury-Rowan missed AYP every year since the measure began in 2003.

Faith Elementary met AYP each year.

This is the first year Kannapolis "Fred L. Wilson Elementary did not meet AYP.

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