Following a significant 2011
increase in the minimum measures of the No Child Left Behind Act
(NCLB), 37 percent of Georgia schools did not make “Adequate
Yearly Progress.” 70 percent of all Georgia high schools did not
make Adequate Yearly Progress in 2011 under the rising passage
and graduation rates required under the federal law.
This year’s local results followed state and national trends. 22
of Coweta’s 28 schools made “Adequate Yearly Progress” in 2011,
while six did not. By comparison, all Coweta County schools made
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in 2009, and only one did not
make AYP in 2010.
According to the Georgia Department of Education’s annual
Adequate Yearly Progress report - released on July 21 – East
Coweta, Newnan and Northgate High School, Lee Middle School,
Poplar Road and Ruth Hill Elementary Schools did not make AYP in
2011.
Ruth Hill and Lee Middle School are expected to make AYP when
test passage rates are recalculated this September using
students’ retest scores on the Georgia Criterion Referenced
Competency Test (CRCT).
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was developed to encourage
uniformly high curriculum standards and to establish a method of
accountability for each school and school district. Schools are
required to meet required pass rates on high stakes tests in
English and math, and must meet requirements set for test
participation and either attendance (in elementary and middle
grades) or graduation rate (in high schools).
Under NCLB, the required success rate is called the annual
measurable objective (AMO). Meeting this requirement is
sometimes called “making the bar.” The requirement is a
measurement applied to groups of students rather than to
individual student performance.
To make AYP, every school must meet the bar in its overall
school population, and in a number of student subgroups. Under
current legislation, the bar rises each year for all schools
until, by 2014, 100% of students must pass math and English
tests, meet other academic requirements, and graduate.
For example, high school graduation rates (for the overall
population and subgroups within the school) had to exceed 80% in
2010 to make AYP. Those rates rose to 85% in 2011. Required
graduation rates rise to 90% next year, and to 100% by 2014.
Required math passage rates for high schools also rose this
year, for all students and subgroups, from 67.6% last year to
75.7% this year. They rise to 83.8% next year, and to 100% by
2014.
In many cases in Coweta County, schools would have made AYP
under last year’s passage rates but did not make it because the
bar was raised for 2011. In most cases, Coweta schools not
making AYP in 2011 met the bar among students overall, but did
not make AYP because of performance within one or more
subgroups.
Coweta Schools not making AYP:
- East Coweta High School did
not make AYP because of subgroup passage rates for math and
English/Language Arts graduation tests and overall
graduation rate.
- Newnan High School did not
make AYP because of overall graduation rate.
- Northgate High School did
not make AYP because of subgroup passage rates for
English/Language Arts graduation tests. Overall school
population met AYP bar, and may make AYP under recalculated
scores.
- Lee Middle School did not
make AYP because of subgroup passage rates on CRCT math.
Overall school population met AYP bar, and the school should
make AYP under recalculated scores.
- Ruth Hill Elementary School
did not make AYP because of subgroup passage rates on CRCT
math. Overall school population met AYP bar, and the school
should make AYP under recalculated scores.
Poplar Road Elementary School did
not make AYP because of subgroup passage rates on CRCT math.
Overall school population met AYP bar.
Because 2010-11 is the second year that Newnan High School did
not meet AYP, the school will be listed as a Needs Improvement
school. This will result in additional services offered to
students. More information about those services will be
forthcoming.
The Coweta County School System did not make AYP as a system
because of the graduation rate of the system’s overall
population and among some subgroups. The system-wide graduation
rate was 80.6% for 2011, while the AYP performance bar rose to
an 85% graduation rate in 2011.
Coweta’s performance under NCLB in 2011 reflects state and
nation-wide trends. Because of rising performance criteria,
schools that do well or make significant gains in one year can
still not make AYP.
Newnan High School, for example, saw an increase in math
Graduation Test passage rates from 2010 to 2011 (94% of students
overall passed the graduation math test in 2011, up from 74.7%
in 2010). The school as a whole – and all subgroups – met NCLB
academic standards in 2011, but did not meet graduation rates
under the 2011 bar.
With continuously rising bars for all subgroups, high schools
also tend to be affected before other schools. Coweta’s three
high schools have larger student populations than its elementary
schools, so they have a greater AYP challenge. Middle schools
also face the challenge of large testing groups, because all
middle school students test.
For high schools, and for school systems as a whole, calculation
of graduation rate also poses a higher risk for schools to be
labeled as not making AYP. Students who might need more than
four years and one summer semester to graduate can complete
their education with a high school diploma. However, these
students do not count as graduates. They are calculated as
dropouts for the purposes of AYP/NCLB.
Students on Special Education diplomas are not counted as
graduates, even though they might have met and exceeded their
IEP goals. Students who successfully earn the 28 required
credits to earn a diploma but who have not passed all five
graduation tests also do not count as graduates. They are
calculated as dropouts.
To address these difficulties, educators in Coweta County are
working diligently to provide opportunities for student success.
Credit recovery programs and remediation are being offered
before school, after school, and at lunch. Staff members are
involved in professional development, and numerous
research-based teaching methods are being employed in
classrooms. However, because of the rising bar of high stakes
testing as a measure, a school may receive a negative label even
when students are being more successful than ever before.
As a result of the many challenges created by NCLB, the Georgia
High School Graduation Test will no longer be used for AYP
determination after the 2010-2011 school year. This test,
administered to juniors, is two years removed from much of the
content that is taught during the freshman year. Beginning next
year, specific End of Course Tests will be used to calculate AYP.
The Georgia Department of Education, education agencies from
other states, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have
said that current NCLB legislation is in need of adjustment.
Secretary Duncan has said that he is prepared to give public
schools relief from federal mandates under NCLB if Congress does
not pass the law’s long-awaited overhaul and reauthorization,
which is four-years overdue, according to Duncan. Duncan has
warned that as many as 83% of U.S. schools could be labeled as
failing next year based on current NCLB rules.
"We have many great schools in the state providing a
high-quality education to all students," said State School
Superintendent Dr. John Barge. "But the rate at which the
academic bar and the graduation rate requirement increased this
year prevented more schools from making AYP. We knew we were up
against the proverbial wall because this bar increases each
year, and it appears that we have begun to hit it.” |