More schools miss mark

Tougher standards meant more Washington schools than ever failed to meet federal guidelines for “adequate yearly progress,” including four traditional high schools in Spokane County.

State education officials Thursday reported that 628 public schools and 57 districts fell short in at least one category out of 37 monitored – double the number of schools that missed the mark in 2007. That means nearly one in five Washington districts is on the “improvement” list, so called because the schools need improvement.

Last year, 30 school districts were on the list, a slight improvement from the year before.

Schools are judged each year on 37 categories of achievement under the federal No Child Left Behind act. Of the 390 schools in the first stage of improvement this year, about 100 of them missed adequate yearly progress – AYP, as educators call it – in just one or two categories.

That can mean, for instance, that too many kids who are in special-education programs, are still learning to speak English or are in some other subgroup failed to pass one section of the WASL. Or it can mean that students had too many unexcused absences or that too many skipped the WASL. It can also mean that too many seniors failed to graduate – a particular problem among alternative high schools.

The list includes:

•14 schools in the Spokane district, including Lewis and Clark, North Central and Rogers high schools, and Bancroft and Havermale alternative schools.

•Five Central Valley schools, including University High and the district’s Barker Center.

•Five Mead schools, including the district’s alternative high school.

•Three schools in the Mary Walker district of Stevens County.

•Two Riverside schools and its independent scholar program.

•Two alternative high school programs in West Valley.

•One school each in the Cheney, Colville and the East Valley districts.

Seattle Public Schools had 43 schools on the list. That’s nearly half the schools in the state’s largest district.

Schools can get off the list by meeting standards two years in a row. But that’s growing more difficult, as the standards rise every few years – as they did this year – to meet President Bush’s goal that every student in every school be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

That goal is now called unrealistic even by some of the president’s education-reform supporters. Among them is Washington’s top educator, Terry Bergeson, who Thursday released a list of reforms she wants Congress to consider before it takes up the issue of reauthorizing No Child Left Behind next year.

“Many of the schools and districts on this year’s improvement list have met tough challenges and have made strong improvements,” Bergeson, state superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement. “That work goes unrecognized under No Child Left Behind.”

Schools on the improvement list can be hit with sanctions if they receive federal Title I money, which goes to schools in neighborhoods where a high percentage of students qualify for subsidized lunches – one indication of poverty. Extreme cases call for a complete reorganization of a school, with all staff replaced.

The first step for a school that’s new to the list is notifying all parents that the district will pay to bus their kids to a neighboring school. Three of Spokane’s Title I schools – Audubon and Arlington elementaries and Garry Middle School – were forced to mail such letters. Those schools are on the list because too few students in special education classes passed the reading portion of the WASL.

“If a school is on the list, don’t assume that school is failing,” Bergeson urged. “Look underneath that signal and see the progress they are making.”