More schools need improvement this year
SEATTLE – The list of Washington schools classified as needing improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind Act has grown this year, according to a count the state superintendent’s office released Friday.
All told, 185 schools are on this year’s “needs improvement” list, up from 156 last year. The number of districts on the list remained unchanged at 29.
For the first time since President Bush signed his sweeping education-reform bill into law in 2001, several Washington schools are being ordered to plan for a possible change in leadership.
Four districts reached their goals for boosting achievement – Lake Stevens, North Thurston, South Kitsap and Stanwood-Camano – and will be taken off the list next year if they show similar progress again.
“Whether schools and districts are on this list or not, it’s important for parents and the public to understand that many of them are making significant academic progress,” Superintendent Terry Bergeson said. “Unfortunately, some of the improvements are hidden by one-size-fits-all labels required by this federal identification process.”
No Child Left Behind, the cornerstone of the president’s education reform, includes requirements that schools show “adequate yearly progress” or risk being slapped with restrictions on how they can spend their federal Title I poverty aid.
Because of a bump in achievement standards that took effect this year, Bergeson told the Associated Press she was fearing the number of schools on the list might double. She noted that about one-quarter of the 185 schools on the list met their targets this year, but can’t be taken off the list until they do so two years in a row.
“This law has made being ‘in improvement’ a stigma. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what’s happened,” Bergeson said. “It’s made improvement seem like a failure. These schools truly are improving in almost all cases.”
Twenty-three school districts in Washington fell short of their improvement goals in 2005 but didn’t move past the first stage of sanctions, which calls for the state to work with districts that ask for help.
Two districts, Pasco and Othello, moved from that first set of sanctions to a second level that requires them to work with the state.
The first set of sanctions applies to 86 schools this year. They’re required to give students the option of switching to a school that’s been meeting achievement standards, and must use Title I funding to cover busing costs for any child who decides to transfer.
Eighty-one schools are in the second category, under which students can choose one of two options: transferring to a better school or getting a tutor. Schools must use Title I money to cover related costs.
Ten schools fell under a third set of sanctions requiring “corrective action” from their districts with oversight from the state – perhaps overhauling a reading program or replacing personnel.
And eight schools face sanctions in a fourth category, requiring schools to plan for changes that could include a new principal or a reshuffling of teachers in subject areas where students are struggling.
Those schools are: Mount Adams Middle School in White Swan, McFarland Junior High in Othello, Stevens Middle School in Pasco, Toppenish Middle School in Toppenish, Morris Schott Middle School and Saddle Mountain Intermediate in Mattawa, and Adams and Barge-Lincoln Elementary in Yakima – all of which have high rates of poverty. Most have significant populations of students learning English as their second language.
Greg Day, the Yakima School District’s director of academic assessment, said reading scores rose dramatically at both Adams and Barge-Lincoln this past year, while math has been a bigger challenge.
In recent years, the district has added reading coaches at every school, it has math coaches in several and plans to expand the program districtwide, Day said.
Six schools made big enough gains to be taken off the improvement list: Garfield Elementary in Toppenish, Roosevelt Elementary in Tacoma, Oakwood Elementary in Clover Park, Columbia Elementary in Wenatchee, and Mabton Senior and Wellpinit Middle schools.
None of Washington’s schools have yet dropped to a fifth level of sanctions, which gives states the option of withholding Title I funding from underperforming schools.
Rob Harmon, the state’s assistant superintendent for special programs, said Bergeson’s office has yet to decide whether it will use that option or mete out other penalties outlined in No Child Left Behind.
“I don’t want to take money away from the children that generate that money,” Bergeson said. “I want to make the grown-ups spend the money in a way that helps kids,”