Evsc Welcomes Pilot Program’s Flexible Strategy to Boosting Schools

By JOHN MARTIN, Courier & Press staff writer 464-7594 or martinj@courierpress.com

Indiana is one of six states that in the future will tailor assistance to low-income, struggling schools based on the schools’ level of need.

State Superintendent for Public Instruction Suellen Reed said Indiana is in a pilot program that moves away from “one size fits all” approaches to schools struggling to meet No Child Left Behind standards.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires increasing percentages of schools’ students to meet reading and math standards each year, with the goal of all students meeting the standards by 2014.

Schools that receive federal funding for instruction are subject to penalties if they fail to reach No Child Left Behind’s progress targets in successive years.

But the current system doesn’t distinguish between schools which barely miss the progress target and those coming up far short.

The pilot program seeks to change that by sending more intensive help to those missing the target by wider margins.

Lowest-performing schools will be deemed to have the most need, and will get the most federal funding.

“We welcome this opportunity to focus Indiana’s improvement efforts on those students and schools that need the most help,” Reed said.

The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. has 12 elementary and middle schools that qualify for federal instructional funding under Title I, the program that provides reading, writing and math support to students in schools with higher levels of poverty.

Six of those schools – Culver, Lincoln and Howard Roosa elementary schools and Evans, Glenwood and Harwood middle schools – are in federally mandated restructuring because of their failure to meet No Child Left Behind standards.

EVSC Chief Academic Officer Patricia Melton said the pilot program reflects a “more flexible and realistic” approach to helping schools.

“They’re trying to do a better job of meeting schools where they are.”

Superintendent Vincent Bertram, after his arrival last year, consulted with state education officials about appointing a School Improvement Team to work with schools in restructuring.

The EVSC previously had assigned a second principal to those schools. Bertram said that neither he nor the state thought that was an effective improvement model.

The School Improvement Team model focuses on teacher training and developing strategies to help students succeed, EVSC officials say.

The upcoming year will be the EVSC’s second with that model, and the School Improvement Team will grow from two members to four. Bertram plans to add a fifth and final member.

Current members are Velinda Stubbs, Tamara Skinner, Jane Bartley and Jason Bailey.

The EVSC in many ways is “ahead of the curve” in how it evaluates student progress, Melton said.

Schools across the state and nation are turning to “continuous assessments” of students which involve short skills tests. Melton said the EVSC has already been giving those tests at many of its schools.

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