Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls schools fail to meet goals

The state Department of Education says Idaho public schools are making progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Law compared to past years, although Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls school districts did not meet the Adequate Yearly Progress standards. The agency released scores this morning from Idaho Standards Achievement Tests. The tests results are used to determine whether schools are succeeding under No Child Left Behind and show the number of Idaho schools making adequate yearly progress has nearly tripled since the 2006-2007 academic year. During the most recent academic year, 432 public schools made adequate progress under the federal mandate and 220 did not meet targets for student achievement. Three years ago, 168 schools passed and 458 schools failed to make adequate progress. In the Coeur d’Alene School District, American Indian students’ reading and math proficiency were not met. The students fell below the state’s goal for reading by about 6.5 percentage points, and 17 percent fewer students met the reading requirement in 2009 compared to the year before. The students were more than 10 percentage points below the goal for math, and the decrease in students who were proficient fell 82 percent. Post Falls School District failed AYP because Hispanic students fell below the state’s proficiency goal in reading and math, but only slightly, according to AYP report. Students with Disabilities also missed the goals. Hispanic students failed to meet the state’s goal by less than 1 percentage point in reading and less than 2 percentage points in math. Those students, however, scored better than the average Hispanic student statewide. Students with Disabilities slipped in reading 2.03 percent from 2008 to 2009 and were below the state’s goal by more than 25 percentage points. While scores improved 6.69 percent from 2008 to 2009 in math, the students still fell short of the goal by 25 percentage points, according to the report.