Making progress in education

By MIKE JAMES
The Independent

August 05, 2008 11:31 pm

— Six of nine school districts in northeast Kentucky met federal goals for adequate yearly progress last year under the No Child Left Behind Act, according to data released Tuesday by the Kentucky Department of Education.
Most individual schools in the FIVCO area met their goals. In the Ashland, Boyd County and Greenup County districts, only the high schools fell short.
Adequate yearly progress results are based on the Kentucky Core Content Tests in reading and mathematics. Schools are required to have specific percentages of students reaching proficiency and above in each subject and meet other criteria as well.
Each school has a specific number of goals to meet, based on the size of subgroups of students. Subgroups include disabilities, free and reduced lunch eligibility, and minority status, among others.
The area districts that met goals in both subjects were Boyd, Elliott and Lawrence counties and the Fairview, Raceland-Worthington and Russell independent districts.
Boyd County met 75 of its 76 goals, falling short only in the free and reduced lunch category at the high school, said district administrator Marilyn Mayo.
Proficiency has jumped across the district and in each individual school except for the high school, she said.
Several initiatives, including interventions in every building, made the difference, Mayo said. Also, teachers gave up planning periods to assist other teachers in classrooms, she said.
Ashland fell short at the high school level in the free and reduced lunch category, a category that is a perennial struggle, curriculum coordinator Myra Robertson said.
However, goals went up from the previous year, which may have played a part, she said.
Hiking the goals is part of the Kentucky Board of Education’s approach to meeting the NCLB mandate of 100 percent proficiency by 2014; it sets two three-year performance plateaus.
For the 2007-08 school year, reading goals rose an average of 9.3 points and mathematics goals rose an average of 12 points.
Districtwide, Ashland needs to address reading in the disabled student population, Robertson said.
Elsewhere in the FIVCO area, Carter County didn’t meet all its goals but saw an encouraging sign in West Carter Middle School, which did, assessment coordinator Jo Ashworth said.
A new reading program there and math initiatives helped, she said. “We’ve got a lot of good leadership, too.”
All but one of Carter’s elementaries made adequate progress, Ashworth said.
As with Ashland, a chief priority will be working with disabled students, she said.
“It’s a problem with every system where these populations exist, because we hold them to the same standards,” Ashworth said.
Lawrence County Superintendent Jeff May said he was pleased the district met all its goals, saw a small improvement in reading and a 10 percent increase in math across the district. That was offset by disappointment in the math scores at the high school, he said.
Statewide, the number of schools making adequate progress dropped last year.
The data show 70.9 percent of Kentucky’s schools met all their goals, compared to 78.7 percent the previous year. The rise in goals was a likely contributor, according to the department of education.
MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.