Wednesday, November 26, 2003
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Wednesday, November 26, 2003 |
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4 of 7 Fayette schools win appeal of AYP status FCHS, Booth, Flat Rock remain on list By J. FRANK LYNCH Four out of seven Fayette County schools originally named to the state’s list of those not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year have successfully appealed, and of the three that remain, just one was cited for academic shortcomings. Fayette County High and J. C. Booth Middle were unable to prove they tested the required 95 percent of students with a learning disability, in each case missing by just one or two students the percent needed to pass AYP and get off the list. Flat Rock Middle School tested 99 percent of its learning disabled students, but just 44 percent of those were graded proficient or advanced on the reading portion of the Criterion Reference Test. The state requires that 60 percent of students in that category meet or exceed the norm in order for a school to qualify for AYP. Sandy Creek High, Fayette Middle, Rising Starr Middle and Hood Avenue Primary have all been designated “passing” by the state Department of Education, after initially being on the list of “needs improvement” schools released in August. Then, just 58 percent of schools statewide were shown to be in compliance with AYP, a measure of student performance on standardized tests that breaks down scores according to race, ethnicity, disability and socioeconomic factors. As part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, it requires that 95 percent of students at each school participate, or rather, that “no child be left behind.” More than 63 percent of Georgia schools were shown to have met the state’s accountability goals at the conclusion of the AYP appeals process. Some 430 schools appealed their status to the DOE. Of those, 249 were federally-designated Title I schools and 181 were non-Title 1 schools. This was the first year that non-Title 1 schools were included in the AYP report. Hood Avenue is the only one of Fayette County’s seven Title 1 schools that did not meet AYP in the first round, but it was able to prove passage after all. “More schools in our state can now celebrate the hard work of their teachers and the achievement of their students,” said State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox of Peachtree City. “This shows that Georgia’s schools are doing better than originally thought, which moves us one step closer to leading the nation in improving student achievement.” Fayette County’s final results matched state trends showing Georgia’s middle schools were most likely to have failed AYP. Of the 406 middle schools in Georgia, just 78 met the requirements, for a pass rate of 19.20 percent. High schools did slightly better. Of 361 schools across the state, 106, or 29.40 percent, proved they met AYP. A whopping 88.5 percent of all Georgia’s elementary schools met AYP. Of 1,224 elementary schools in the state, just 141 failed to make the grade, for an 88.50 percent passing rate. Cox cautioned that labeling those schools not making AYP as “failing schools” would simply be wrong, since AYP data shows that some of the schools, like Fayette County High and J.C. Booth Middle, met or even exceeded all academic standards, simply to fall short in the test participation category. Having put a season of AYP releases and appeals behind her, Cox said the AYP Appeals Committee and the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement have already begun identifying ways to make the process easier for school systems next year. The appeals process is being standardized and paperwork will be streamlined, making it easier for schools to file appeals while speeding the committee’s response time. Also expected to speed the process in the future is the new Student Information System (SIS). Through the system, every Georgia student will be assigned a unique identifier that will allow the state Department of Education to more effectively track students as they move from school to school and match tests to their records.
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