More schools need improvement
LITTLE ROCK: Twenty-five of Arkansas’ 245 school districts are in some phase of district improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind laws as a result of their students’ performance on the 2008 Arkansas Benchmark Exams.
Last year, 11 districts were categorized as being in district improvement.
A district is classified as being in district improvement when adequate yearly progress is not met. Adequate yearly progress is determined by the percentage of students scoring proficient or exhibiting growth toward proficiency on literacy and mathematics exams in three grade spans across the district. The grade spans are K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. The calculations also take into account the performance of students within the same populations that are used when calculating school improvement: white, African-American, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, students with learning disabilities and English language learners.
A district is placed into district improvement when it has failed to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years. Likewise, districts must make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years to be removed from the district improvement list. Five districts on the list last year have met the standards for adequate yearly progress this year and will be removed from the list next year if they are able to so again next year. They are: Brinkley, Dollarway, McGehee, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special.
Twenty districts are in year one of district improvement, four are in year two and one is in year three. The list of districts is available at http://ArkansasEd.org/nclb/ayp.html#silist.
Each year a school district fails to make adequate yearly progress, the district, in addition to any schools in the district that fail to make progress, must develop a district improvement plan that will include in-depth disaggregation of student performance data, the development of a district improvement plan, and development of a professional development plan specifically aligned with the identified needs of the entire district staff.
Comments
I notice no charter schools are listed. Is that because they are not counted in the federal report, or because they all made AYP in each sub group?
Posted by: OnesAndZeros![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 13, 2008 01:23 PM
Springdale Schools are heavily represented because NCLB requires that achievement tests be given in English during the second and subsequent years. With 25-30% of student body native
Spanish speakers that makes coming up to standards doubly difficult.
It means teachers and schools have one year to teach a non-English student enough language skills to score sufficiently on NCLB second year benchmark tests.
Good luck with that one since most of non-English kids will be speaking Spanish at home while shopping and watching Spanish language TV.
Thanks for that border Security Asa! and Bush.
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Posted by: eLwood![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 13, 2008 01:55 PM
"Each year a school district fails to make adequate yearly progress, the district, in addition to any schools in the district that fail to make progress, must develop a district improvement plan that will include in-depth disaggregation of student performance data, the development of a district improvement plan, and development of a professional development plan specifically aligned with the identified needs of the entire district staff."
Each district will also be required to hire a special gobbledygook administrator.
Posted by: bugeyedlittlefreak![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 13, 2008 03:50 PM