State delays release for second time
• Three-fifths of all public schools in the state will fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress this year. More schools than ever are in danger of being taken over by the state, which has few provisions for such a drastic action. Administrators are becoming more vocal and admitting frustration with state and federal mandates.
By FULLER ROYAL
Local school administrators are expecting the worst when the state finally releases the 2005-06 K-8 End-of-Grade math scores.
Crippled by its inability to finalize and release the scores, the State Board of Education (SBE) has generated anger and frustration from nearly all of its 115 school systems.
Superintendents, directors of accountability and testing and Title I directors from those systems are looking the worst test scores they have had since North Carolina’s ABCs accountability testing was put in place in the mid 1990s.
The math scores were originally to have been released in August along with the reading scores. The SBE delayed the release because it had not determined how many questions on the test would need to be correctly answered to make a North Carolina student proficient in math.
The U.S. Office of Education told SBE Chairman Howard Lee that North Carolina’s students were scoring too high on math – that the results were skewed – and that the state needed to make an adjustment to bring scores in line with the rest of the nation.
SBE designed a new test that followed a tougher curriculum – made tougher mostly by pushing math skill requirements to lower grade levels.
Multiplication tables used to be taught in third grade. The state has pushed them down to the second grade and the new test reflects this.
The state also increased the number of correct responses required to be considered proficient. That move created the dramatic drop in proficiency rates for math.
The results were slated for release on Wednesday of last week. The week before, SBE and the N.C. Department of Public Instruction tried to explain the scores to Title I directors from across the state.
Kenwood Royal, Columbus County Schools’ director of federal programming, including the Title I program, said that the meetings didn’t go as well as state officials would have liked.
He said that the state’s Title I directors are upset with the SBE for going “too far” in the other direction to adjust the scores, which sent the math score averages of schools and school systems plummeting. No one argues that the test was skewed too high. Director of Curriculum and Accountability Paul Pope said that parents and teachers across the state had also approached State Superintendent Lee, concerned that the math scores were artificially high. Pope said there needs to be a closer alignment of test results among the states.
“This has set us back 10 years,” said Assistant Superintendent Alan Faulk. “The State board of Education worked against us.”
Score Delays
Last Wednesday at 9 a.m., the time slated by SBE to release the scores, they had not appeared on the DPI website. Later in the morning, a message was sent to the media that the scores would be embargoed until Thursday, Nov. 9.
Statewide, challengers for school board seats cried foul, claiming that the scores had been delayed until after Tuesday’s general election. The Public Schools Forum, on its website Friday, reported the speculation that DPI officials has been unable to finish the scores in a timely manner and wanted to save them further embarrassment. The Forum reported that the delay was indeed to prevent bad news just days before the election.
Several of the state’s largest newspapers, including The Charlotte Observer, had already received test scores from their local school administrations even though the SBE had embargoed them.
Later Wednesday morning, the scores appeared on the DPI website with a message-crawl on the screen saying that the scores had not been officially approved by the SBE.
By Thursday afternoon, the scores had been yanked from the site.
What’s Being Done
Last Tuesday, the day before the scores were to have been released, The News Reporter met with six Columbus County Schools’ administrators to discuss the upcoming scores.
Attending were Columbus County Superintendent Dan Strickland; Faulk; Royal; Pope; Agatha Brown elementary curriculum coordinator; and Kathy Lewis, high school curriculum coordinator.
The six explained the various programs and efforts the schools have undertaken to boost student achievement and scores – efforts which will have to be doubled if the system intends to reach the 100 proficient goals set by the federal government for 2014.
They include more emphasis on reading, writing and mathematics.
One major initiative is the new principals’ walk-through program. Since principals could face the loss of their jobs if their schools fail to perform, the walk-through program puts them in each classroom at least once each day.
Pope and Strickland said the walkthroughs are helping principals stay on top of what’s being taught and make them more aware of the needs in each class. It makes them more hands-on.
Historically, principals have not had to deal too much with curriculum. That has changed and principals who don’t have a grasp of curriculum matters will find the going tough.
The county’s principals have gone through numerous workshops and extensive training to meet the testing needs of their schools.
Two schools are the beneficiaries of an initiative led by First Lady Laura Bush – Reading First. Williams Township and Cerro Gordo elementary schools shared a $3 million grant two years ago that established state-of-the-art reading libraries and computers at each school to assist K-3 students with their reading skills in the lower grades.
The jury is still out on the effectiveness of those programs. Pope said that the first group is coming through this year and will be tested or the first time this spring.
Brown said that at the schools without Reading First, other methods and programs are being used.
Royal said that one requirement of the Reading First grant is that the school system train all K-3 teachers in the Reading First techniques, even though they will not have access to the Reading First resources and materials.
He said that Reading First is a good program and that it’s unfortunate that it cost too much to have in every school.
Pope said that countywide, the schools are using a tracking program that checks the pace and skill levels of students.
Throughout the day, on thier own, students use classroom computers to take small assessment tests on a regular basis.
The assessments check to see if students are on track and where they greatest needs are. Teachers and administrators can access the information and plan accordingly.
Brown said that the K-2 schools are now bale to analyze the progress of their students and help them with specific skills before they get to any kind of test.
The administrators were thrown by SBE’s actions. Pope said the county had shown steady growth in math and reading skills since 1996-97.
“We’re staring another 10-year cycle,” he said.
Only two schools are expected to make AYP in either system this year – Chadbourn and Evergreen elementary schools. The new math scores put the elementary schools more in line with the math results the high schools have been producing.
School growth rates are different now. Rather than the average growth of all students being measured, school growth is determined by how many students made a pre-determined amount of growth.
Proficient students hit new lows
With the new math tests and increased minimum scores, nearly all of the students have dropped a scoring-level or more. Those who were scoring Level IV, are now Level III or II. Students who were scoring Level III have dropped to Levels I or II, both below the minimum requirements to be labeled proficient.
Students who have tested at levels of proficiency are finding themselves below proficient for the first time.
Strickland said that a concern has always been with students stuck at Level II and not moving up to Level IV. Now that concern is more dire.
He said that reaching Level III has been drilled into teachers and students for so long that once Level III is met, no one sees the need to move higher.
“Our teachers thought they had made it when they reached Level III, but they still need to grow,” Faulk said.
Strickland said that just a few low test scores can make a difference in a school ‘sperformance, not unlike that of several really low or high SAT scores making a difference.
“We’re not going to let teachers think they are not doing their jobs,” Strickland said. “They are working hard and they have more and more piled on them.”
Strickland said that teachers are retiring as soon as they can.
“I see the frustration in their eyes every day,” he said.
“We’ve told the principals to brag on the efforts made by our teachers,” Royal said, adding that the local achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed and that teachers should feel good about the increases in reading scores. He said that NCLB has created an impossible situation, and that even in well-to-do counties, the number of schools failing to make AYP has grown significantly.
Strickland said that in two years, he expects the state to make similar adjustments on the reading scores. Whatever gains in math have been made by then will be more than offset by new lows in reading.
Summer school again
Another consideration for the schools: state law requires that third, fifth and eighth-graders pass both the reading and math portions of their EOG tests before they can be promoted to their next grades. About 1,500 students failed to pass their math EOGs this year and a like number are expected to fail it next year.
The county will have to find money to reinstate its summer school program for those students on in 2007 – a potential cost of several hundred thousand dollars.
The city schools face a similar situation.
The State Board has created a moving target,” Royal said. “It’s hard to know what to do. In adjusting, they have committed overkill. They’ve put us in the ditch and we can’t get out of this one.”
Royal said that Strickland has concentrated nearly all of his energy and time on pulling up scores.
“I have never seen a group working harder than this group,” Royal said of the county’s administrative team. “We’ve never had a superintendent involved in instruction to this degree before.”
Royal said that by keeping former Superintendent Tommy Nance on board and working the system’s maintenance and transportation infrastructure, Strickland has been able to concentrate on curriculum.
Barring additional delays, The News Reporter will run the math scores next Monday.
