Produced by the State Department of Education, the following questions and
answers are a simple introduction to the many parts of No Child Left
Behind,
with a
special focus on the AYP results that are being released next week for elementary
and middle schools. High school AYP results will be released in December.
ANSWERS TO PARENTS’ QUESTIONS ABOUT NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
QUESTION: What is NCLB?
ANSWER: The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is a sweeping piece of federal legislation that affects practically every aspect of American public education. While Congress has passed other pieces of legislation impacting schools, NCLB provides directives in areas formerly left up to states. For example, NCLB establishes criteria to be applied to all schools for standards and student testing, school accountability systems, educator quality, and safe schools.
QUESTION: What changes must South Carolina make to comply with NCLB?
ANSWER: First, South Carolina must implement a single, statewide accountability system based on federal regulations. Second, we must comply with new requirements defining what we mean by “Highly Qualified” educators. Third, we must define what we mean by “safe” and “unsafe” schools.
QUESTION: But didn’t South Carolina already have a statewide accountability system?
ANSWER: Yes, we did. The South Carolina General Assembly passed the Education Accountability Act (EAA) in 1998, and that law set rigorous statewide academic standards for every subject in every grade. The EAA ordered the use of the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (PACT) to measure progress toward those standards in grades 3-8, as well as end-of-course tests for high school students in four key areas. The EAA also established school and district report cards that rated school performance.
QUESTION: So what happens to our state accountability system?
ANSWER: It had to be modified to comply with the requirements of the new federal law. A number of things already in place because of the EAA did help South Carolina meet NCLB’s mandates, however.
QUESTION: Will South Carolina have to change its PACT testing system?
ANSWER: No. South Carolina’s PACT assessment system meets the requirements of NCLB. The new High School Assessment Program (HSAP), South Carolina’s new high school exit examination, also meets the testing requirements but will have to be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education.
QUESTION: What about the state school report cards that come out each November under the EAA?
ANSWER: The report cards will continue to have the rankings of “absolute” and “improvement” on which schools have been rated for the past three years. Because of NCLB, however, a third measure of school performance will be added – Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). In this way, South Carolinians will have three ways to look at the performance of every school, every district, and the state as a whole. The “absolute” rating looks at the school as a whole and acknowledges improved school performance on PACT on all levels: below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced. “Improvement” is also based on the school as a whole. This measure looks at the increase in each individual student’s learning from one year to the next and sums it across the school. Schools are ranked excellent, good, average, below average, or unsatisfactory, based on both how well they do on “absolute” and on “improvement.”
NCLB requires that all students reach proficient in reading/language arts and mathematics (roughly B+ work) by the end of the 2013-14 school year. The chart below shows the percentage of students that must score proficient in order for AYP to be achieved each year.
The report card’s absolute and improvement ratings look at the average performance of students. But the new AYP rating will examine each school’s performance based on “subcategories” of students within that school. AYP looks at the percentage of students performing at or above proficient only, and it also includes other indicators such as graduation rates for high schools and attendance rates for elementary and middle schools. With AYP, there is no scale of rankings. It is an either/or measure. There are a number of targets each school must meet in order to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress. The larger a school is, and the more different types of students it serves, the more targets it must meet. If any one of those targets is missed, the school will receive the label “Does Not Meet AYP.”
The chart below illustrates the number and types of AYP targets a South Carolina
school might have to meet, depending on its students. Many of our schools
have either 17 or 21 targets to meet AYP.
QUESTION: Does not making AYP mean a school is failing?
ANSWER: Not necessarily. It means that the school didn’t meet the AYP target(s) in one or more categories. For example, if a school has 24 AYP targets and meets 23, that obviously is not a “failing” school. In fact, the terminology of “failing school” does not appear in the language of the new federal law. Parents should also look at other performance measures on a school’s report card.
QUESTION: What is AYP for the other performance indicators?
ANSWER: Other possible AYP targets include the percentage of students tested (at least 95 percent) for all students and in each sub-category of students in English/language arts and in math. For high schools, Adequate Yearly Progress will be met on graduation rate if improvement occurs over the previous year’s graduation rate. For elementary and middle schools, the attendance rate’s AYP is met if the school meets or exceeds the attendance threshold of 95.3%. These targets are to be met not only by the school and district as a whole, but also by each subcategory of students within the school and district.
QUESTION: What are the different subcategories within a school that will be reviewed?
ANSWER: Sub-categories must have at least 40 students to count toward AYP. There are 9 possible subcategories: African-American, American Indian/Native Alaskan, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, white, other/multiracial, students with disabilities, limited English proficient, economically disadvantaged.
QUESTION: What about NCLB allowing parents to transfer their children to different schools?
ANSWER: Although all schools will be rated using AYP, the transfer provision of NCLB applies only to Title I schools. These schools receive federal Title I funds because they serve a significant number of students from economically disadvantaged families. When a Title I school has been identified as not meeting AYP in the same subject for a second consecutive year, it enters “needs improvement” status. Parents must be offered the choice of sending their child or children to another school in that district that is not in “needs improvement.” A second year in “needs improvement” (third year of not meeting AYP) requires the school to offer supplemental services from approved providers (student tutoring) as well as the choice option. Other consequences follow if the Title I School continues in “needs improvement.”
QUESTION: What does “needs improvement” mean? Is the school failing?
ANSWER: Just as in the earlier answer of why a school isn’t necessarily “failing” if it doesn’t meet AYP, it isn’t necessarily “failing” if it receives “needs improvement” status. The terminology is important here, because all schools can be viewed as needing improvement. For example, a school can meet 15 out of 17 AYP targets in one year and 16 out of 17 targets the next, but if it does not meet Adequate Yearly Progress in the same subject for two consecutive years, it is labeled “needs improvement.”
QUESTION: What must a school do to get out of “needs improvement” status?
ANSWER: A school is designated as “needs improvement” when it does not make AYP for two years in the same subject. To remove the designation, a school must make AYP for two years consecutively in every AYP target.
QUESTION: Why is South Carolina projected to have a higher percentage of schools not meeting AYP than other states?
ANSWER: Under No Child Left Behind, each state was allowed to set its own version of what “proficiency” means. Some states, including South Carolina, have proficiency standards that are much higher than other states. That’s why there is a wide disparity among states when it comes to the percentages of their schools that don’t meet AYP. For example, 99.2 percent of Iowa’s schools met AYP, but only 13 percent of Florida’s schools met AYP. South Carolina set a high proficiency rate under the 1998 EAA state accountability system, a level that independent analysts have rated among the nation’s toughest. That’s a major reason why our numbers are similar to Florida’s.
QUESTION: Why doesn’t South Carolina lower its proficiency rate so that more of its schools can meet AYP?
ANSWER: Some states have lowered their proficiency standards, but South Carolina chose not to do so. Based on recommendations from South Carolina teachers, our standards were set with the firm belief that they represent the proper skill level, and several independent reviews have confirmed that. No Child Left Behind does make our proficiency standard a much more important and influential benchmark than it was under the EAA, but State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum believes that lowering that standard would send the signal that we do not believe our students, teachers and educators are capable of learning at the highest levels. Mrs. Tenenbaum does maintain, however, that the U.S. Congress should move to level the playing field by adopting a common proficiency standard for all states.
QUESTION: Can a school be closed because it is on the “needs improvement” list?
ANSWER: Not this year. Schools will have several years to make improvements before that could happen.
QUESTION: Could the “needs improvement” label hurt a school? What if a school’s most involved parents request a transfer? What if teachers become demoralized? How would that help a school improve?
ANSWER: President George W. Bush and the bipartisan group of congressmen and senators who passed No Child Left Behind believe schools must be held to high standards for all children and face penalties if they fail. The idea behind No Child Left Behind is that new law will push teachers, principals and parents to make sure all students meet the new standards.
QUESTION: Many South Carolina schools face severe challenges. Their students live in poverty, often in single-parent homes where their parents are not educated. These children don’t receive adequate health care, and often don’t get enough to eat. Is it fair for the new law to hold teachers accountable for students who come to school with some many strikes against them?
ANSWER: No Child Left Behind is based on the idea that every school must have very high standards, and also that children and educators will accept the challenges of meeting the new goals.
QUESTION: No Child Left Behind says that special-education students must meet the same standards as regular-education students. Is that possible?
ANSWER: The idea is that schools shouldn’t set lower standards for special-education students, and that those students should be taught the same curriculum as regular-education students. Teachers may use different strategies such as smaller class sizes, more one-on-one attention and more hands-on activities. Also, students with severe disabilities may be assessed in alternative ways.
QUESTION: What about schools with lots of students who can barely speak English. Do their test scores count?
ANSWER: Yes. Schools must make annual improvements in the percent of students with Limited English Proficiency passing language proficiency tests.
QUESTION: What does NCLB mean for teachers and other educators?
ANSWER: No Child Left Behind sets specific criteria for determining whether a teacher meets the federal definition of “highly qualified.” In South Carolina, as in most states, teachers already had to meet certain criteria in order to be certified and to teach. The federal requirements add, in some cases, additional course requirements before a teacher can be labeled Highly Qualified.
QUESTION: Can a teacher be effective and not be labeled Highly Qualified?
ANSWER: Yes. The federal definitions require a major, master’s degree or passage of an assessment in each content area a teacher teaches. Therefore, it is possible for a teacher to have taught a particular subject for many years and be effective but not meet the federal requirements at this time.
QUESTION: How will I know my child’s teacher’s qualifications meet the federal requirements?
ANSWER: That information is available on the South Carolina Department of Education’s web site at www.scteachers.org/certsearch/inquiry.cfm. If your child attends a Title I school and is taught four consecutive weeks by a teacher not meeting the criteria of Highly Qualified, the school will send a letter home explaining the teacher’s qualifications.
QUESTION: What’s this I hear about No Child Left Behind labeling schools as “persistently dangerous.”
ANSWER: The new federal law requires each state to develop a set of criteria that will determine when a school is designated as “persistently dangerous.” A parent whose child attends such a school can transfer that student to another school in the district. South Carolina’s criteria were developed by a statewide task force of educators, parents, law enforcement leaders and judicial officials. Then the criteria were approved by the State Board of Education and the U.S. Department of Education. When the criteria were applied to 2002-2003 school crime statistics, no South Carolina school received the designation. Each state’s “persistently dangerous” criteria are temporary and will be replaced next year by uniform federal standards.
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L.E. Gable Middle School | 198 Ott's Shoals Road | Roebuck, SC 29376 | 864.576.3500
Karen N. Bush, Principal