Story posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009
East, West Leyden Fail To Meet AYP
By TOM ROBB Journal & Topics Reporter
East and West Leyden high schools and District 212 as a whole failed again this year to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) on state standardized tests under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.
District Assistant Supt. for Curriculum Jack Denny discussed the district's test scores with school board members last week.
This is the fifth year the district has been on academic watch or corrective action status. Both schools have been in corrective status for three years.
But district officials complain ever-increasing standards and a requirement that one 45-member sub-group can fail an entire school or district means it becomes virtually impossible to pass.
Currently, 70% of students must pass the state standardized test. The state not only judges the overall schools and district in several categories of tests but also in several socio-economic groups as well.
If 70% of any one of those designated sub-groups fail to pass the test, the school fails. If there are not enough students to make a sub-group at either school, but combined there are 45-students in the whole district in a sub-group and 70% of them fail, the schools can pass but the district would fail.
Last year, 62.5% of students and sub-groups were required to pass in order to make AYP. Next year 77.5% of students and sub-groups will need to pass. By 2014, 100% of all students will need to pass, something most local educators say is impossible.
Some target scores at Leyden were reduced through a mechanism called "safe harbor" used when scores from the prior year are so low it is not reasonable to believe they would improve enough to pass in one year, said Denny.
East, West and the district failed to make safe harbor targets in several categories.
At East, of the full student population category only 49.9% of students passed in reading and 57.3% passed in math---well below the 70% standard.
White students passed in both reading and math while Hispanic, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged sub-groups failed in both reading and math at East.
The district's score was more mixed with the all student groups failing both reading and math, the white sub-group passing math and failing reading, Hispanics passing reading but failing math, students with disabilities failing both reading and math and economically disadvantaged students passing both reading and math.
The district sent letters to parents as mandated by NCLB offering placement in other area schools but said there were none in the area currently accepting Leyden students because most if not all are also failing.
The district has several improvement plans in place and did see some improvements from last year's scores.
Because the schools and district are failing, several improvement plans have been instituted and filed with the state including private tutoring, mentoring and guided study programs and a pilot program using special computer courses for failing students that work individually with students.
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