Schools

Most Reston Elementary Schools Meet No Child Left Behind Benchmark

No middle or high schools make Adequate Yearly Progress for 2010-11, but what does that really mean?

Only 38 percent of Virginia public schools made Adequate Yearly Progress during the 2010-11 school year, prompting Virginia Department of Education officials to point out the flaws in the Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

“Accountability is not advanced by arbitrary rules and benchmarks that misidentify schools,” state superintendant of instruction Patricia Wright said in a statement after numbers were released by the Virginia DOE on Thursday.

“During the coming weeks, I will begin a discussion with the state board on creating a new model for measuring yearly progress that maintains high expectations for student achievement, recognizes growth — overall and by subgroup — and accurately identifies schools most in need of improvement.”

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Locally, five of Reston's eight elementary schools (Terraset, Sunrise Valley, Dogwood, Aldrin and Forest Edge) made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Armstrong, Lake Anne and Hunters Woods did not.

Langston Hughes Middle, Herndon Middle, South Lakes High School and Herndon High School also failed to make AYP.

Find out what's happening in Restonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A school can fail to make AYP for a variety of reasons, from the wrong number of children tested to counting a subgroup incorrectly. That has led to growing criticism of the law, in effect since 2002, from educators and administrators. Within the next three years, all US schools must have a 100 percent pass rate on state standardized tests.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced he will provide a process for states to seek relief from key provisions of the law, with the specifics to be announced next month.

Because of the intricacies of the AYP calculation and higher benchmarks, only 697 (38 percent) of the commonwealth’s 1,839 schools, made AYP based on achievement on 2010-2011 state tests.

Sixty-one percent of schools made AYP during the previous ratings cycle. Only four of Virginia’s 132 school divisions made AYP based on 2010-2011 achievement, compared with 12 during the previous cycle.

Countywide, Fairfax County Public Schools said  the pass rate remains high rate . Ninety-two percent of FCPS students passed mathematics and 93 percent passed reading.

 "Fairfax County Public Schools no longer considers adequate yearly progress (AYP) a true measure of our students’ achievement." said FCPS Superintendent Jack Dale. "Instead, we are focused on how much students in every subgroup are achieving from year to year, using SOL tests, among other assessments."

Mathematics scores in all subgroups have risen significantly during the last five years, FCPS data shows. Between 2007 and 2011, the percentage of Black students passing in mathematics has risen from 67 percent to 83 percent. During that same time period, the passing percentage for Hispanic students has risen from 68 percent to 85 percent.

The same pattern of achievement can be seen in reading performance.  In the last five years, the pass rate for Black students rose from 75 percent to 87 percent; for Hispanic students, from 69 percent to 86 percent.

To see more county data, click here.

Meanwhile, Dogwood Elementary was one of 11 Virginia schools that exited its Title I status. A Title I school, which contains a high number of low-income students, exits federal sanctions by meeting the annual benchmarks in the previously deficient area for two consecutive years.


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