• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

42 Schools Fail Fed Assessment

Posted on: Saturday, 10 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

CORRECTION RAN SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 A2

* A B1 story on Thursday should have said the address for Lawrence Intermediate School is 4850 W. Jeffrey Road. Also, Tucson High Magnet School will not be required to pay for students from the school to attend school elsewhere as the same story said. The school failed to meet federal "Adequate Yearly Progress" goals for the second year in a row, but it is not a Title I school, so it does not need to pay to move students. It will need to submit an improvement plan, though.

State says area may yet receive more such labels

Forty-two Southern Arizona schools have failed the federal government's yearly assessment of progress on standardized testing and attendance, including Tucson's largest high school. Also, one intermediate school is now a step closer to government intervention.

The state says there may be more failing labels once appeals are completed. But local school officials stressed that the results, released Wednesday, are, in some cases, reflective of only one small piece of data that may affect few students at a school.

The measurement system is part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Tucson High Magnet School, six other Tucson Unified School District schools, three Sunnyside schools and one Flowing Wells school were among the group that did not meet what's called Adequate Yearly Progress. The 15 others that failed are charter schools.

One other Southern Arizona school, Lawrence Intermediate School, 700 E. 22nd St., which has Grades 3 through 5 and is in its fourth year failing, will spend this year drafting a re-structuring plan to take effect next year, said TUSD Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer.

"That's our target school for this year," he said. The school could face government intervention two years from now if achievement does not pick up.

The label was announced at the school Wednesday, said Stella Soto, who, as the school's community representative, works with parents and volunteers. Finding out the school was failing for a fourth year is tough to accept, she said.

"People are seeing that we're being slammed with a failing label, but I see how hard the teachers work with children every day," she said.

The failing schools join 199 statewide. That's fewer than the 302 that failed last year, although 185 school labels have yet to be released because they are being appealed, said Doug Nick, spokes- man for the Arizona Department of Education.

The good news is dozens of formerly failing schools, including 11 in TUSD, Tucson's largest school district, where able to turn things around from the previous year.

The bad news is, Tucson High is on the list for the second year in a row. That means TUSD will be required to pay for any of Tucson High's more than 3,000 students to attend another school if the students want to move elsewhere.

Three other large, urban high schools in Tucson failed - Cholla, Pueblo and Desert View.

The federal government evaluates schools based on AIMS scores because that's Arizona's measure of student achievement. Schools are measured as a whole, then are broken down by factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and special-education status. For example, did enough Native American students take the test?

Missing the goal on any of more than 140 categories means the school fails for that year. Attendance also is part of the equation, which is why schools have been on a campaign to make sure kids go to class every day.

Even if the total number of failing schools surpasses last year's total, parents and students shouldn't be alarmed, said Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, pointing to the mounting mandates for schools.

For three years, schools had to meet the same achievement levels, but last year those mandates rose significantly, he said. For example, the number of students required to pass the AIMS math test at the third-grade level rose from 32 percent to 53.3 percent, Horne said.

"The fact that the number (of failing schools) is approximately the same . . . proves students are test-proficient," he said.

He said that, in the past, failing labels from the federal government have not caused an exodus of students from schools, including Lawrence, where students have had that option for two years now. In fact, he said, parents often rally in support of the school.

Tucson High's failure was the result of not enough special- education students taking AIMS and lower-than-required achievement among English learners, Pfeuffer said.

"I would say that Tucson High is experiencing some significant growth and a wider range of diversity," Pfeuffer said. "It is the responsibility of the school council and the administration to take a look at this data and come up with a plan. I would also say that Tucson High continues to be successful for many students. And one aspect should not be the picture of what Tucson High is."

Pfeuffer, like Horne, does not expect many to leave the school.

That's true for Tucson High student Eduardo Dominguez.

"It's up to the students if they want to get a good education or not," the junior said. "If a person is a slacker, they are not going to learn anything."

Ricardo Gomez, who has two daughters at Tucson High, said he is happy with his children's education, for the most part.

"I believe that people here will roll up their sleeves and get to work," he said.

TUSD plans to address the size of its three failing high schools by instituting so-called "Smaller Learning Communities," an education catch phrase that connotes attempts to create multiple schools within one campus.

The failure of Walter Douglas Elementary School was the result of four students not taking the AIMS test, Flowing Wells Superintendent Nic Clement said.

The federal government requires 95 percent of students who are on free or reduced-price lunch, and thus considered low-income, to take it.

Financial information is private, Clement says, so tracking those students and making sure they show up on test day is impossible.

"Don't get me wrong. We want everyone to make (Adequate Yearly Progress)," he said.

Altar Valley Middle School originally was identified as failing by the state, but Doug Roe, superintendent of the Altar Valley Elementary District, said he's appealing the label, because he says the state has incorrect data on the number of eighth-graders who took the AIMS test.

The state Department of Education confirmed that the school has not yet been labeled failing, despite its being included in the list sent Wednesday to the media.

The state has its own accountability system, called Arizona Learns. Those labels can be more punitive, because the state will replace a principal after a school is labeled "underperforming" three years in a row.

The results are scheduled to be released publicly in mid- October.

Failing schools

Schools that did not make Adequate Yearly Progress in 2004-2005 are listed below. The Star looked at schools in Pima, Cochise, Santa Cruz and southern Pinal counties. There are 185 school statewide still appealing their failing label.

Pima County:

Academic & Personal Excellence High School

AmeriSchools Academy - Country Club

AmeriSchools College Preparatory Academy

Aztlan Academy

Baboquivari High School

Baboquivari Middle School

Calli Ollin Academy

Cavett Elementary School

Cesar Chavez Middle School

Chaparral Middle School

Cholla High Magnet School

Compass High School

Continental Elementary School

Davis Education Center

Desert View High School

Ha:san Preparatory & Leadership School

Lawrence Intermediate School

Montessori Schoolhouse

Pima Partnership School

PPEP TEC, Cesar Chavez Learning Center

Project More High School

Pueblo High Magnet School

Robles Elementary School

Southern Arizona Community High School

S.T.A.R. Academic Center

Townsend Middle School

Tucson Accelerated High School

Tucson Country Day School

Tucson Magnet High School

Walter Douglas Elementary School

Cochise County:

Benson High School

Bowie High School

Buena High School

Center for Academic Success

Omega Alpha Academy

San Pedro Valley High School

Sierra Summit Academy

Sierra Vista Middle School

Valley Union High School

Santa Cruz County:

Pimeria Alta

Santa Cruz Alternative High School

Wade Carpenter Middle School

* Star reporters Shelley Shelton and Alexis Huicochea contributed to this story. * Contact reporter Daniel Scarpinato at 573-4195 or dscarpinato@azstarnet.com.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

More News in this Category