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In the final accounting of Coweta County
Schools’ performance under federal No Child Left Behind Act, 23
of 27 Coweta County schools met Adequate Yearly Progress during
the 2007-2008 school year.
The four schools that did not meet those standards in 2007-08
missed fully meeting the standards in only one academic area
within one subgroup of students.
The Georgia Department of Education revised its 2007-08 No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) report on September 30. The revision of the
NCLB performance report left a considerably improved picture of
Coweta County school performance following a preliminary NCLB
report issued in July.
The revision confirmed that six more Coweta County Schools had
made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal standards.
That reduced the number of Coweta County schools not making AYP
to four schools – down from 10 schools in an initial report
issued by the state in July – and improves the AYP performance
report for the schools that remain on the list, and for the
Coweta County School System as a whole.
Welch Elementary, White Oak Elementary, Evans Middle, Lee
Middle, Madras Middle and Smokey Road Middle Schools had their
AYP status changed in the revised report, and have met AYP in
all categories for the 2007-08 school year.
Arnall Middle, East Coweta Middle, Ruth Hill Elementary and
Western Elementary still did not make AYP after the 2008
revision, but several areas in which the schools did not make
AYP were improved in the revised report.
Welch Elementary School also came off the No Child Left Behind
“Needs Improvement” list, as expected by school officials,
because the September revision confirmed that the school had
made AYP for 2007-08.
Historically, most Coweta County schools make AYP year to year.
Most of the school that do not make AYP in given year usually do
not meet the criteria in a relatively small number of areas, and
most of those schools are able to address student performance by
the next reporting year.
Of the 23 schools that met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
overall and within all subgroups in 2007-08, 16 have met AYP
standards every year since the federal reporting began under No
Child Left Behind act, or (if they are newer schools) have made
it every year since opening.
Coweta County’s AYP performance – After September’s
2007-08 revised report was issued, 85% of Coweta County Schools
(23 out of 27 schools measured under the standards) made AYP
overall and in all subgroups within the school.
Several schools which had not made AYP on one or more criteria
in recent years made AYP in 2007-08, including East Coweta High
School and Evans Middle School. It was the second year in a row
that east Coweta High School made AYP, which means that the
school was removed this year from the “needs improvement” list.
Evans Middle School’s improved AYP status means that the middle
school can be removed from the “Needs Improvement” list next
year, if the school makes AYP again.
Of the four schools that still did not make AYP, those four did
not make it in only one subgroup each.
Overall, county schools and the Coweta County School System
showed improved performance. The Coweta County School System’s
overall graduation rate – a measure used in determining AYP for
high schools – improved from 78 percent in the 2006-07 school
year to 82 percent in 2007-08.
A chart “here”
shows the AYP and Needs Improvement status of all 27 Coweta
County elementary, middle and high schools during 2007-08 under
No Child Left Behind.
16 schools – including Northgate High School, Madras, Middle,
Lee Middle, Arbor Springs, Arnco-Sargent, Atkinson, Canongate,
Eastside, Elm Street, Glanton, Jefferson Parkway, Moreland,
Newnan Crossing, Northside, Thomas Crossroads and White Oak
Elementary Schools – have made AYP for every year since being
they have been rated under No Child Left Behind Standards.
Most of those schools have met No Child Left Behind standards
for the six years since the 2001-02 school year that the
standards have applied to all schools, and a few newly-opened
schools have simply met the standards every year since they were
established. Schools that show a longer period meeting standards
were Title I schools that met similar standards predating the No
Child Left Behind revision of federal law.
Distinguished schools – as shown on the linked AYP chart – are
those schools that have exceeded No Child Left Behind standards
for three or more consecutive years.
School AYP Performance and the state’s revision -
Adequate Yearly Progress is a measure of how schools perform
overall and in specific student subgroups each school year. To
make AYP, each school system and each school must meet 95
percent participation in standardized tests, specific passage
rates in standardized math and reading (or reading and language
arts) tests, and “second indicators” including daily student
attendance in grades K-8, and graduation rates for high schools.
The criteria must be met overall, and within smaller subgroups
of students. If a school makes AYP overall, but does not make
AYP in one or more areas within one or more smaller subgroups,
then the school is reported as not making AYP. A subgroup may
range from 40-75 students depending on the size of the school.
In 2008, Coweta County - along with all Georgia school systems -
had fewer students pass the Criterion Reference Competency Test
in Math after the implementation of a new math curriculum in
several grades.
While an initial drop in student passage rates is not unusual
after a new curriculum is introduced, last year’s new math
curriculum implemented at grades 3, 4, 5, and 8 affected schools
and school systems significantly because math test scores are a
major part of AYP determinations and the new curriculum impacted
4 of 6 AYP math grade levels. Math scores are also part of the
state’s promotion criteria for 5th and 8th grade students.
Because of the lower passage rates, a much larger number of
students in grades 3, 5 and 8 participated in summer school and
retook the Math and/or Reading tests in June, and a
larger-than-usual number of schools in Georgia did not make AYP.
The Georgia Department of Education released its initial AYP
report for the 2007-08 school year in July. But the state also
announced that it would release a revised list in September that
would take into account the passage rates of students who retook
state CRCT Reading tests for grades 3, 5 and 8 and CRCT Math
tests in grades 5 and 8. Other states already use retest scores
to help determine AYP.
How the AYP revision affects Coweta County – Including
the summer retests allowed the six additional schools in Coweta
County to make AYP in 2007-08. It also improved the performance
of the system overall.
In the revised report, East Coweta Middle School still did not
make AYP because of the CRCT Math test passage rates in the
Students with Disabilities subgroup. But East Coweta is now
reported as having made AYP in Economically Disadvantaged and
African-American subgroups for CRCT Math, and in the Students
with Disabilities subgroup for CRCT Reading and Language Arts
tests.
Arnall Middle School did not make for CRCT Math test passage
rates in the Students with Disabilities subgroup, and its status
did not change in the revised report.
Western Elementary School did not make AYP for CRCT Math test
passage rates in the African-American subgroup. But the school
is now reported as having made AYP in the Economically
Disadvantaged subgroup in math.
Ruth Hill Elementary School did not make AYP for CRCT Math test
passage rates in the African-American subgroup, and its status
did not change in the revised report. But the state revision
nearly removed the school from the list because the percentage
of students who passed the math test increased after retesting
this summer.
“In the end, Ruth Hill was one student away from making AYP this
year after the retest results,” said Christi Hildebrand, Coweta
County School System’s Testing and School Improvement
Coordinator. “As we anticipated, the revised list brings us down
to only four schools that did not make AYP. Each of the four
schools not making AYP fell short in only one area and in most
cases was off by only a very small number of students.”
The Coweta County School System’s AYP status – The Coweta
County School System as a whole did not make AYP because of High
School Graduation Math Test passage rates in the Students with
Disabilities subgroup, and the high school graduation rate of
the Students with Disabilities subgroup.
The school system’s status did not change overall in the revised
report, but the system is now reported as having made CRCT Math
Test passage rates in the Students with Disabilities subgroup in
grades K-8.
As with individual schools, a school system must meet AYP
criteria overall and in all subgroups. To be included in a
system-wide AYP report, the minimum size of a subgroup (as
defined by No Child Left Behind) is 40 to 75 students, just as
with individual schools.
“That can make meeting AYP goals for your school system a little
tougher than with individual schools,” said Hildebrand. “Coweta
County has approximately 22,000 students enrolled, so 40
students is less than one percent – really less than a quarter
of a percent of the whole population,” and yet performance
within those small areas can affect whether the whole system
makes AYP or not.
In fact, student subgroups that often do not appear in
individual school’s AYP reports do appear in system-wide AYP
status reports, because when the school system’s enrolled
population as a whole is considered there are at least 40 to 75
students who meet the federal criteria system-wide.
Out of 1,076 Students with Disabilities in grades K-8, the
school system made AYP with CRCT math retest scores included.
However, out of the 100 eleventh grade Students with
Disabilities in Coweta County High Schools, 55 students passed
the High School Graduation math test in 2008. The system needed
63 to pass to make AYP.
Also in the Students with Disabilities subgroup, the Coweta
County School System improved its graduation rate from a 34.5
percent rate in 2007 to a 50.8 rate in 2008. The system needed a
70 percent graduation rate to make AYP, however.
“That was another area that we were very close in 2007-08,” said
Hildebrand. “To make AYP as a school system, we have to meet 33
different criteria overall and in different our subgroups. We
did not make AYP in 2 out of those 33 areas.”
“If a teacher was grading a student’s paper and they had 31 out
of 33 as we did in our AYP indicators, that would be 94% - an
A,” she said.
In fact, minimum standards under No Child Left behind rise each
year, “so it gets more difficult even as we make improvement.”
The AYP graduation rate standard rose in 2007-08, “and while we
significantly improved our graduation rate for students with
disabilities, we did not increase enough to meet AYP this year.”
Regardless, Coweta County continues it focus on continuous
improvement with all schools – those who met AYP and those who
fell short - taking action to continue to increase student
achievement, explained Hildebrand.
Needs Improvement schools - Schools that do not make AYP
in the same area (reading/Language Arts, math, attendance, or
high school graduation rate) for two years in a row are placed
on the “Needs Improvement” list. Schools on the list must then
meet AYP standards for two consecutive years in order to come
off.
The revised AYP report released by the state Tuesday removed one
Coweta County school from the Needs Improvement list, and
improved the status of another.
Welch Elementary school came off of the “Needs Improvement”
list, because it made AYP in the revised report.
Evans Middle School remains on the Needs Improvement list. But
the revision confirmed that the school did make AYP this year,
so Evans can come off the list if the school makes AYP again
next year.
East Coweta High School made AYP in this year’s 2007-08 report.
It was the second year in a row that ECHS made AYP, so the high
school came off the Needs Improvement.
Arnall Middle and East Coweta Middle remained on the list.
Several parents at Welch Elementary School signed up for free
tutoring at the school that was offered because the school was
initially included on the Needs Improvement list. The school
system still honored that commitment and provided tutoring to
students who signed up.
But the school made AYP in all categories, and the record was
revised to show that Welch is not on the “Needs Improvement”
list.
“Overall, our school system and our individual schools did well
on meeting No Child Left Behind requirements, and the amended
AYP reports reflect that,” said Hildebrand.
“The schools take AYP very seriously, and any areas of weakness
on the AYP report are already being addressed in the schools’
improvement plans this year,” she said. “All of our schools set
school improvement goals every year; system officials,
principals, and teachers have strategies and actions in place
for those schools who did not make it, and even for the ones
that did make it because we are committed to ensuring student
success.” |
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