NCLB results show local schools strong
Staff Report
Despite a low percentage of Kentucky schools that reached their federal No Child Left Behind goals, local schools batted nearly a thousand for the 2007-08 school year.
According to Murray Independent School District's Eleanor Mills Spry, all 11 of the district's Adequate Yearly Progress targets were met. Spry, the district's assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said Murray High School met all 10 of its target goals, while Murray Middle School (comprised of grades 3-8) met all of its 14 goals.
“Additionally, we also met the annual measurable objective for each school within our district, while also seeing significant gains from last year's progress report,” she said in a release from the district. Spry added that the spring 2008 Kentucky Core Content Test results for the NCLB's AYP reports indicate MISD is well above the required proficient percentage in reading and math.
Spry said these results reflect the support and efforts of the MISD staff, students, parents and volunteers, all working in tandem to meet the student's needs.
“Our students are exceptional and continue to demonstrate positive growth and we are pleased to know our intervention plans are evidencing success,” she said. “We are also proud to have supportive parents to assist us in reaching the 2014 proficiency goal of 100.”
Spry said the MISD staff is dedicated in their use of data to drive instructional decisions to meet individual student needs and is to be commended for their excellent efforts.
“As we continue to implement instructional interventions at all MISD respective school our goals are to see even more gains toward proficiency and the successful closing of achievement gaps,” she added.
According to test results, the Calloway County School District met 12 of 13 target goals for the district, including all of its math goals.
“I'm happy to announce that we have met all of our math goals and all but one reading goal for a 92.3 percent district score,” said Calloway County Schools Superintendent Steve Hoskins in a Calloway schools release. “In the subpopulation group score of reading for students with disabilities, we fell just outside of the margin of error. This is a disappointing result for our district and we will be formulating a plan to help that small number of special needs students to achieve their goals for next year.”
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, a school/district must meet 100 percent of its target goals to qualify as having made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals.
Calloway District Assessment Coordinator Randy McCallon said as Calloway has moved forward in overall achievement, focus will be made on the disability category.
“I feel very confident that we have moved forward in overall achievement when all students are considered. However, we understand at this point the need to focus our efforts even more on the disability category for the NCLB portion of the testing results,” he said.
“There is no doubt in my mind that students in this category are provided excellent educationalopportunities. Unfortunately, with NCLB, there could be significant individual gains that fall short of the target goal for the district or school,” McCallon added. “I am extremely proud of the long history of success we have had with special needs students at Calloway County Schools.”
Debbie Plummer, director of special education for Calloway County Schools, added, “Over the past three years, we have been closely monitoring student data and have taken proactive measures to provide resources for the students and staff to increase reading and math performance. We have seen positive benefits from these initiatives and will now intensify those efforts.”
“Based on parent surveys and personal feedback, I believe that our students with disabilities and their parents in general feel they are being given a quality education from dedicated and caring professionals,” she added. “Our success in this area is evidenced by the 100 percent successful transition rate for students with disabilities that has been sustained by our district over the past three years coupled with a drop-out rate that is less than the state or national average.”
Data released Tuesday showed that only 70.9 percent of schools met the federal No Child Left Behind targets for 2007-08, which is down from 78.7 that met goals for 2006-07.
According to an Associated Press story that attributes the Lexington Herald-Leader, the drop is due to increased math and reading goals.
Overall, it said, 337 state schools failed to meet their goals.
Interested persons may visit the district web site at www.calloway.k12.ky.us to read the Comprehensive Improvement plans or to visit the Kentucky Department of Education web site at http://www.kentuckyschools.org/KDE/ to view detailed test results for all Kentucky schools on their link for “Testing and Reporting.”
Story created Aug 06, 2008 - 11:16:10 EDT.
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