City Schools Miss Targets, at Risk of State Takeover

By David Mekeel, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Aug. 30–The Reading School District has failed again to meet state educational goals and is at risk of being taken over by the state, according to state officials.

On Wednesday, the state Department of Education released progress reports for the 2006-07 school year. The reports are required by the federal No Child Left Behind act.

The city district missed its progress targets for a fifth straight year — the only district in the county to do so, according to the department.

If Reading doesn’t meet the targets this school year, the state can create a board of control to run the district in place of the school board, department spokesman Michael C. Race said.

That’s happened in other districts, including Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Chester-Upland, Race said.

Superintendent Thomas D. Chapman said he doesn’t think it will happen in Reading.

"Although we can always do better, we feel we’re making progress," he said.

Chapman said he believes the state is confident the school board and administration are taking the district in the right direction.

The targets are supposed to measure how well districts are moving toward No Child Left Behind’s ultimate goal of having all students proficient in math and reading by 2014, Race said. Districts are graded in three categories: Attendance and graduation rate. Performance on the Pennsylvania System of Schools Assessment, or PSSA, test. The rate of participation in the PSSA test.

Detailed report cards on districts’ performances will be released Oct. 29.

For a district to meet the target this year, at least 54 percent of all students had to be proficient in reading, as rated by the PSSA test, and 45 percent had to be proficient in math.

Districts also needed an 80 percent graduation rate or an improved rate from the previous year, as well as a 95 percent participation rate on the PSSA test.

Eleven of Reading’s 19 schools did not meet the state targets.

Each year a district doesn’t meet the target, it drops one status level. With the new report, Reading falls to the lowest of the six levels.

School board President Keith R. Stamm said the board hasn’t discussed a possible state takeover but probably will at its September meeting.

Stamm predicted the state would have trouble getting the district up to par.

"Personally, if that happens, I’d like to wish them luck," he said. "There’s no one on the school board who hasn’t tried to make improvements.

"The board, administration and teachers in Reading are incredibly hard-working and dedicated."

Stamm also said that he would view a state takeover as an attempt to help the district rather than usurp the board’s power, but that he doesn’t want it to come to that.

"I would hope that they’d work with the board rather than take over," he said. "I think you’re better off with a team approach."

Even if the district reaches the progress targets this year, it won’t be out of the woods.

A district must hit the target two years in a row to be considered making adequate progress, Race said.

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