Robbie_reporter
08-19-2007, 01:52 PM
The whole testing movement in public education was supposed to make us smarter about how our schools are doing. But each year when the state's report cards come out - which they did this week - there's more I don't understand.
One great thing about being a journalist is that really smart people return your telephone calls. In trying to make better sense of the so-called grades, I did a round of interviews with people who dig into the reports every year. They agreed on some things, disagreed on others, but they each had observations that are worth passing along.
• There are 412 schools — 163 fewer than in 2002-03 — that are getting Ds or Fs. Even conceding the imperfections in the state's rating system, that still means a lot of students aren't getting the help they need.
• Meeting the standards for improvement in the No Child Left Behind law is overwhelming almost all districts, even those that have scored well in the past. No Child Left Behind requires schools to make "adequate yearly progress" — or AYP for short.
In the first years under the law, the "easy" students who benefit from just a bit more attention have been brought up. Those who still aren't scoring well have more severe problems, so "progress" is getting increasingly harder to make.
Vandalia, Sugarcreek, Tipp City and Yellow Springs got "excellent" ratings under Ohio's standards, yet they didn't meet the AYP benchmarks for improvement.
The list of districts that are going to come up short is going to grow every year from now until 2014, when every student is supposed to be scoring at a minimum level.
More... (http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2007/08/19/ddn081907ellenxx.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=22)
One great thing about being a journalist is that really smart people return your telephone calls. In trying to make better sense of the so-called grades, I did a round of interviews with people who dig into the reports every year. They agreed on some things, disagreed on others, but they each had observations that are worth passing along.
• There are 412 schools — 163 fewer than in 2002-03 — that are getting Ds or Fs. Even conceding the imperfections in the state's rating system, that still means a lot of students aren't getting the help they need.
• Meeting the standards for improvement in the No Child Left Behind law is overwhelming almost all districts, even those that have scored well in the past. No Child Left Behind requires schools to make "adequate yearly progress" — or AYP for short.
In the first years under the law, the "easy" students who benefit from just a bit more attention have been brought up. Those who still aren't scoring well have more severe problems, so "progress" is getting increasingly harder to make.
Vandalia, Sugarcreek, Tipp City and Yellow Springs got "excellent" ratings under Ohio's standards, yet they didn't meet the AYP benchmarks for improvement.
The list of districts that are going to come up short is going to grow every year from now until 2014, when every student is supposed to be scoring at a minimum level.
More... (http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2007/08/19/ddn081907ellenxx.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=22)