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Karen Stevens, director of student services at Washington Community High School, said she was taught it takes three years to have a trend in anything.
Come next fall, District 308 might be trending as a failing school, according to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
For the second year in a row, the district failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress percentages in both reading and mathematics.
The 2011 Illinois District Report Card shows the district had 60.5 percent of its students meet or exceed AYP standards in reading and 60.1 percent in mathematics — the goal for 2011 was 85 percent in both subjects.
The 2011 junior class tested 273 students.
Not only did the district’s scores not meet AYP standards for 2011, the scores were several percentage points lower than the results from the 2010 tests overall — 64.6 percent in reading and 63.4 percent in math.
The goal for 2010 was 77.5 percent.
“The data shows us that the scores were down this year a little bit compared to last year — they weren’t a significant drop, but definitely a drop-off,” Stevens said.
“There could be multiple reasons for that. We’re still above the state average for ACT scores though ... across the board in every category and overall composite, so we’re still doing things well,” Stevens said.
Problems with
the system
AYP standards were established to determine if students are improving their performance based on established annual targets. What began in 2003 with district’s needing 40 percent of its students to meet or exceed AYP standards ends in 2014 when 100 percent of a district’s student population is supposed to meet AYP.
While it takes a rather complicated formula to calculate the AYP for each school district, at the basic level, it uses scores from two tests that high school juniors take in late April — the Prairie State Achievement Examination and the American College Testing exam.
“You’d think it’d be take day one scores (ACT) and day two scores (PSAE) and average the two and that’s how you get the AYP score ... but there’s some mysterious formula used there,” Stevens said. “The whole thing is a bit of a mystery to schools.
“It’s frustrating — our success or failure of a school is determined by one morning, one day of our junior’s lives. How is that fair to the kids? How is that fair to the schools? Clearly it’s not when there’s only eight schools in the state of Illinois that are meeting AYP.”
Karen Stevens, director of student services at Washington Community High School, said she was taught it takes three years to have a trend in anything.
Come next fall, District 308 might be trending as a failing school, according to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
For the second year in a row, the district failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress percentages in both reading and mathematics.
The 2011 Illinois District Report Card shows the district had 60.5 percent of its students meet or exceed AYP standards in reading and 60.1 percent in mathematics — the goal for 2011 was 85 percent in both subjects.
The 2011 junior class tested 273 students.
Not only did the district’s scores not meet AYP standards for 2011, the scores were several percentage points lower than the results from the 2010 tests overall — 64.6 percent in reading and 63.4 percent in math.
The goal for 2010 was 77.5 percent.
“The data shows us that the scores were down this year a little bit compared to last year — they weren’t a significant drop, but definitely a drop-off,” Stevens said.
“There could be multiple reasons for that. We’re still above the state average for ACT scores though ... across the board in every category and overall composite, so we’re still doing things well,” Stevens said.
Problems with
the system
AYP standards were established to determine if students are improving their performance based on established annual targets. What began in 2003 with district’s needing 40 percent of its students to meet or exceed AYP standards ends in 2014 when 100 percent of a district’s student population is supposed to meet AYP.
While it takes a rather complicated formula to calculate the AYP for each school district, at the basic level, it uses scores from two tests that high school juniors take in late April — the Prairie State Achievement Examination and the American College Testing exam.
“You’d think it’d be take day one scores (ACT) and day two scores (PSAE) and average the two and that’s how you get the AYP score ... but there’s some mysterious formula used there,” Stevens said. “The whole thing is a bit of a mystery to schools.
“It’s frustrating — our success or failure of a school is determined by one morning, one day of our junior’s lives. How is that fair to the kids? How is that fair to the schools? Clearly it’s not when there’s only eight schools in the state of Illinois that are meeting AYP.”
But how can educators ensure that students are receiving the best possible education, when teachers aren’t teaching to the curriculum, but teaching to tests?
“I think any educator will tell you we absolutely resent the idea of teaching to a test,” Stevens said. “That in and of itself goes against our basic educational philosophies, so what we’ve tried to do instead of simply saying we’re going to teach to the test ... we’ve gone to an entirely skills-based curriculum.”
With the NCLB standards set to run through 2014, Stevens and other teachers and administrators know it is only going to be increasingly difficult to meet AYP standards.
In February, the state is applying for a waiver from the NCLB legislation that state officials are hoping relieves the pressure on failing school districts in the form of testing on a more growth-based, individualized level.
“Increasing student achievement is Illinois’ number one educational priority, and, as such, our state intends to pursue a waiver from NCLB, allowing us to create our own accountability system,” said Gery Chico, chairman of the State Board of Education, in a news release issued two weeks ago.
ACT/PSAE analysis
While the AYP results are based on both the PSAE and ACT exams, as previously stated, it is hard to calculate how both play a role in the final AYP scores.
While the 2011 AYP percentages were a drop-off in both reading and math from 2010 (64.6 in reading and 63.4 in math in ‘10) and even 2009, (69.1 percent and 63 percent respectively), the 2011 percentages were actually on par with previous year’s percentages.
The median percentage of District 308’s reading score since 2006 is 59.5, while this year’s was 60.5. The highest during any year since ‘06 was 69.1 in 2009, while the lowest was 59 in both 2007 and 2008.
The median percentage for mathematics since 2006 was 60.5, while this year’s was 60.1. The highest during any year since ‘06 was 63.4 last year, while the lowest was 56 in 2007.
The median percentage for science since 2006 was 61, while this year’s was 63, the highest for any year during that period. The lowest was 57 in 2007.
Since 2003, the district has a higher median percentage of students who “meet or exceed” the AYP standards with 60 percent compared to the state’s 56 percent.
District 308 has been consistent in its percentage of students who “meet or exceed” AYP standards, but have not improved from year-to-year as NCLB states most schools should.
The dip in PSAE performance across the board for reading, science and math was something Stevens noticed and said the school needs to focus on more for the 2012 tests.
While still above the state average, the ACT exam, also, saw a drop-off in composite scores from 2010 to 2011 for District 308 students — 21.4 for the district with a state average of 20.6 compared to the 2010 scores of 21.8 for District 308 students and 20.7 for the state.
Stevens said teaching to different standards including AYP and the soon-to-come Common Core Standards and different tests such as the ACT and PSAE not only puts a lot of pressure on the teachers, but the students as well, especially when the tests are so different from each other.
“The concept for the (ACT) is not did I remember that the Civil War started in 1861 and ended in 1865 … what they want you to be able to do is use skills in order to identify answers,” Stevens said. “The thing about the ACT is that it’s not a testing format they see in their K-11 school career and suddenly they’re tested in a format they aren’t used to.
“The PSAE is … not a test of if you can tell me what an ion is, it’s can you apply practical knowledge and kids will take it and think it’s really easy, but … for some kids we see that they struggle in it, so we’re really trying to focus on those skills and not just something we’re saying, but something we’re doing.”
Editor’s Note: Next week’s edition will include information on a new set of standards coming to the schools, how the graduation rate at WCHS fell nearly 10 percent in 2011 and what steps the school has taken to ensure every student has opportunities to learn and grow.
