DPS Takes Closer Look at AYP Rankings

By Laura Collins, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.

Jul. 23–DURHAM — In the wake of Monday’s release of preliminary Adequate Yearly Progress results, Durham Public Schools officials are taking a closer look at what’s working and what’s not.

The district, which had only 17 percent — 8 out of 46 — of its schools reach or surpass AYP goals, now has 14 schools that are facing academic sanctions in math.

Both E.K. Powe and Glenn elementary schools have failed to meet AYP goals in math for six years, but officials say test results don’t accurately reflect progress made at the schools.

In 2006-07, E.K. Powe met only 53 percent of its goals, in 2007-08 the school met 90 percent of those goals. Similarly Glenn met 52 percent of its AYP goals in 2006-07, but 78.9 percent last year.

Superintendent Carl Harris said the tests don’t account for progress.

“We always want all of our schools to meet AYP. But also I’m a realist and it’s unrealistic when 100 percent of every subgroup must reach a goal every year. Not one subgroup can fall short, if so, the school doesn’t meet the criteria,” he said. “When we look at total performance over the year, our schools are getting better and better, but getting better doesn’t make you pass. I just think it’s unfair when you’re labeling schools as bad schools when they miss one or two targets.”

As part of the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind act, schools test students that are divided into subgroups based on a variety of factors including race, free/reduced lunch eligibility and pretest scores. If any of the subgroups does not meet target goals, the school does not meet AYP for the year.

Wandra Polk, director of curriculum instruction and technology for the state Department of Public Instruction, said the tests are fair and created with “strong input from teachers.”

“The tests are aligned to the North Carolina standard course of study. They are designed to be the framework of what should be taught in schools,” Polk said. “The state standards provide teachers what students should know and be able to do. If the state standards are taught well, the students are going to do well on the state assessment.”

Regardless, critics of the testing say its all or nothing approach misrepresents a school district. For example, in Durham 14 schools met 90 percent or more of their AYP targets, but did not make AYP because they were under 100 percent. Seven schools missed by only one goal.

Rather than take drastic measures such as replacing principals or faculty for the schools that have consistently missed AYP goals, DPS Chief Academic Officer Terri Mozingo said the district is planning on attempting to fix the problem internally though programs and initiatives, some new and some which have been in place for two or three years. She said she is encouraged by the number of schools that have made progress, even if they didn’t meet AYP goals.

“It normally takes three to five years for innovations to be implemented. Some of these innovations you don’t put them in and the [schools] change overnight,” she said.

Some of those programs include Professional Learning Communities which will be districtwide in the fall, providing more onsite support and school improvement specialists and assistant principal academies. At the high school level, the district plans to provide online SAT and ACT support to students.

New to the AYP success list this year are George Watts, Southwest, Hillandale, Lakewood and Easley elementary schools and Shepard Middle School.

Conversely, four schools hit AYP targets last year, but did not make them this year. They are Eastway Elementary, Morehead Elementary, Pearsontown Elementary and R.N. Harris.

Stacey Wilson-Norman, assistant superintendent of elementary curriculum and instruction, said the district needs to take a closer look at the schools that previously met AYP goals and did not this year.

“One thing we need to do is to look at those schools. We need to have time to look at and diagnose what happened at those schools,” she said.

The district will be putting together improvement plans for the schools facing sanctions for missing AYP goals.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.

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