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According to the Georgia Department of Education’s 2010 Adequate
Yearly Progress report, no Coweta County school is on the
state’s Needs Improvement List for the first time since 2003.
The Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report - released on Monday,
July 19, 2010 - reflects how schools perform based on state
standardized test scores. As a result of this performance, the
district will no longer be required to offer initial transfers
for students to schools outside of their assigned district.
Schools are placed on the Needs Improvement List when they do
not make AYP for two consecutive years in the same content area.
“This has been a goal of ours for several years. With 28 schools
and rising achievement requirements, not having a school on
Needs Improvement is a significant accomplishment,” said
Superintendent Blake Bass.
Upon the first release of school and system data, all schools
have made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) with the exception of
Newnan High School and Evans Middle School.
Students who did not show mastery of standards on the CRCT
participated in a retest session at the end of May. Because of
results already received from these retests, Evans is fully
expected to make AYP once these retest scores are factored into
the AYP formula.
Part of the No Child Left Behind federal guidelines include an
increasing rate of the percentage of students that must pass
state standardized test scores charting a course for 100% of all
students to pass by 2014. As a result of the annual increase of
students who must pass, high schools face the greatest challenge
where the largest population of students and student subgroups
exist.
High Schools are measured on the scores of their first time
test-takers taking the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT)
and on the school’s graduation rate. This year, 74.9 percent of
the first time test-takers had to meet the Enhanced High School
Graduation scores to pass the Math portion of the GHSGT, and
87.7 percent had to meet the Enhanced High School Graduation
scores to pass the English/Language Arts portion of the test.
Although 90 percent of Newnan High School’s test-takers passed
the Math portion of the high school graduation test, this fell
short for AYP purposes where students must pass at an enhanced
level in order to count for AYP. According to the Georgia
Department of Education’s data, only 33.25 percent of high
schools met this Enhanced standard.
As a result of these assessment scores and before retests and
summer graduate rates are calculated in the formula, the
district did not made AYP for the 2010 school year.
“Although AYP may not be a truly accurate measure of how our
students perform daily, it is an instrument to show the school
system where concentration needs to be applied,” said
Superintendent Blake Bass. An example of this is the high school
graduation rate. For several years, using AYP as our standard,
our teachers have worked hard and just this year, our high
school graduation rate rose from 81.7 to 84.0 percent.” |
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