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Lifting Label of Failure How Changes to Federal No Child Left Behind Law Will Aid Some School Districts

Posted on: Tuesday, 12 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Failure is an ugly word, one worn by most Fox Valley school districts for the past year.

School districts based in Burlington, Carpentersville, Cary, Crystal Lake, Elgin, Huntley and St. Charles were labeled "failing" because some students fell short of standards on state tests, sometimes only in one subject.

All it took was 40 kids, and all the schools in a district wore the tag.

But a new deal between the U.S. Department of Education and the Illinois State Board of Education curbs some parts of the No Child Left Behind law and likely will lift the failing label from some districts.

Previously, the federal law identified students in each grade by ethnicity, economics, language ability or special learning needs. If an entire district had at least 40 kids in one grade in any of those categories, it had a group. If that group's average state test scores missed the state standard, the group failed - and so did the district.

Starting this year, districts will be judged by a new set of rules that pin its success or failure on the test scores of students in blocks of elementary, middle and high schools. As long as students in one of those brackets meet state standards, the district does, too.

No longer will district grades be determined by several kids from many schools who together formed a group of at least 40.

"It seems to be more rational," Central School District 301 Superintendent Brad Hawk said.

No group of students in any grade in any one school in the Burlington district fell below state standards last year.

Yet because more than 40 children with special needs in one grade across the district's five schools did not score at grade level, District 301 and its 2,400 kids were labeled failing.

The same was true of Crystal Lake Area High School District 155 and its 6,340 kids.

Huntley School District 158 and its 6,000 kids failed only when special needs students in one school fell short of state standards - in one subject.

St. Charles School District 303 was tagged with the failing label when special needs eighth-graders in one school tested below grade level.

If these districts post similar scores this year, they will shed the failing label when the new rule kicks into effect.

Districts that met state standards such as Geneva School District 304, Batavia School District 101 or Fox River Grove Elementary District 3 now will have an easier time doing so.

"From a school district point of view, it's probably more fair because you're looking at a larger group," Kane County Regional Superintendent Clem Mejia said.

For Elgin Area School District U-46 and Dundee Township's Community Unit School District 300 - larger, more diverse districts that failed to meet state standards for two years - the change means little.

"Part of it has to do with critical mass," U-46 Superintendent Connie Neale said. "The issue appears to be more impactful for smaller school districts."

With nearly 40,000 students - half who are minorities, a third who are low-income and a quarter who are new to English - U-46 has more students who, research suggests, may struggle on state assessment exams.

District 300 serves nearly 18,000 children, a quarter who live in poverty and 9.7 percent who speak English as a second language.

"It will benefit all school districts," said Tom Hay, District 300 assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. "But I think, in particular, you are going to see a lot of dual districts who are homogeneous being taken off the list."

Many of the 236 districts that did not make what educators call adequate yearly progress last year - a third of Illinois' 882 districts - will not likely be repeat offenders with the new standard, said Jack Jennings, head of the Center for Education Policy in Washington, D.C.

Just look at Indiana.

Indiana was among the first states to use a new yardstick to measure district performance, the same yardstick Illinois adopted this week.

"What they found in Indiana was it greatly reduced the number of districts on the state's watch list," Jennings said. "These provisions will mean, in the short term, fewer school districts will be on the state watch list."

The long-term view is more troubling, Jennings said.

Illinois school districts this year begin testing every student every year in every grade, from third through eighth, in reading and math.

Coupled with that is a bump from 40 percent to 47.5 percent in the number of students who must meet state standards.

By 2014, that number will climb to 100 percent. All students must meet state standards in reading and math in the next nine years, according to the federal law as it is now written.

"The more testing you have, the more chances you have that all subgroups will not meet the required level," Jennings said. "In the long term, more school districts will find they cannot avoid being put on state watch lists."

GRAPHIC: New rules of the game

Changes to the No Child Left Behind law approved for Illinois make it easier for districts to pass the state tests. Changes include:

- A district fails to meet standards only if students in each of the elementary, middle and high school grade clusters fail.

- If any one grade grouping - third through fifth, sixth through eighth, and ninth through 12th - makes adequate yearly progress, the district makes it, too. Test scores filtered by specific groups of students - ethnicity, economics, special learning needs or language ability - no longer determine a district's standing.

- The threshold for identifying subgroups has been raised from 40 students to 45.

- Schools may add 14 percentage points to the test scores of special needs students.

- Effective next year, districts may count the test scores of students who enroll in a district May 1 rather than Sept. 30. This allows a district to drop the scores of students who arrive late in the year. Children who move from school to school will be reported only in the district report card.

Source: Illinois State Board of Education

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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