by Cynthia Howell
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Friday, January 9, 2009
The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday that it will allow Arkansas to use a new way to work with academically troubled public schools.
The plan revises the system of labeling Arkansas public schools based on how well students perform on the state Benchmark and End-of-Course exams. With the new plan, state officials can concentrate on improving academic achievement in the worst performing schools.
The state Education Department will differentiate between underperforming schools that are close to meeting goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and schools where larger numbers of students are far from meeting the state’s academic requirements.
A school that remains in the improvement system for more than five years will become a “state directed” school and subject to decisions of a state-appointed academic administrator who will report to the education commissioner.
Arkansas Education Department officials said Thursday they were pleased with the federal government’s approval of the pilot program that they are calling “Smart Accountability.”
Arkansas is one of three states, along with New York and Louisiana, that received approval Thursday to try out a new system. Last year, six other states — Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Ohio — got approval for their pilot programs.
“We are thrilled with this approval as it will allow us to better target our resources in ways that will best help schools improve the performance of their students,” Ken James, Arkansas commissioner of education, said in a prepared statement.
“This has enabled us to come together collaboratively and look at how we can serve the school districts in the greatest need,” James added in a later interview in which he praised the work of his staff in developing the comprehensive plan. “We feel very confident that this is going to be the catalyst that will allow us to do that.”
The new system, which refines the current system of cat- egorizing low-achieving schools as “needing improvement,” will go into effect in 2009-10 based on state exams that will be given this spring.
The No Child Left Behind Act, signed by President Bush in 2002, calls for all students to achieve at grade level in math and literacy by 2013-14.
To that end, states must annually test students in grades three through eight and in some high school grades to measure overall student progress. The tests also measure progress of subgroups of students toward that goal.
Schools that fall short of the state’s minimum achievement standards for each year are subject to penalties that include permitting pupils to transfer to higherachieving schools, paying for extra tutoring, and even replacing staff.
A total of 375 of the state’s approximately 1,100 public schools were identified this academic year after tests last spring as needing improvement and subject to penalties.
Diana Julian, deputy commissioner of the Education Department, said Thursday that the new plan details how the state will assist schools in the different categories of school improvement.
“In the past, whether a school missed making adequate yearly progress in one subgroup of students or in all subgroups of students, they were treated the same,” Julian said. “This allows us to differentiate and to put more resources from the state behind the schools that are consistently scoring low or are not meeting adequate yearly progress among a majority of subgroups.”
In Arkansas, the six subgroups of students that are monitored for achievement on state math and literacy tests are white, black, Hispanic, poor, disabled and nonnative English speakers.
At least 40 students must be in each of the six subgroups in a school.
When achievement is considered for each subgroup and for the overall student body on the literacy tests and again for the math tests, there can be as many as 14 categories of students at a school.
For example, one of the 14 categories of students would be Hispanic students’ results on the literacy test. Another category would be black students’ results on the math test. Still another would be all students’ results on the literacy test.
One school might have 10 such categories of students. Another school might have all 14 categories.
As a result of the newly approved pilot program, Arkansas schools in which students as a whole meet state achievement standards in math and literacy but up to 25 percent of the student/academic-subject categories fail to meet the standards will be labeled as “Targeted Improvement Schools.”
That label can be applied for up to three years. In the fourth or fifth year of the improvement system, the schools will be labeled for “Targeted Intensive Improvement.”
If a school’s enrollment on average fails to meet the minimum state achievement requirements in math or literacy, or if more than 25 percent of the student/academic-subject categories at a school fail to meet the requirements, the school will be labeled as needing “Whole School Improvement.”
Again, that label could be applied for up to three years. In the fourth and fifth years, if necessary, the school would be categorized as needing “Whole School Intensive Improvement.”
According to the Arkansas plan, state educators will collaborate with the schools that are classified as needing targeted assistance and targeted whole school assistance about improvements that can be incorporated into the school’s overall improvement plan.
However, once schools advance to “targeted intensive” or “whole school intensive improvement” status, the state will be more aggressive in directing a school on the elements to be included in their improvement efforts.
The state will work cooperatively with the state’s 15 education service cooperatives, the 12 math and science centers, the Department of Workforce Education and other agencies to support the schools in the different stages of improvement, according to the plan. Additionally, a specialty team of academic, statistical, or leadership experts will be assigned to work with schools that have been in improvement for three or more years.
The assistance to schools from the state will be multifaceted, addressing academic performance, learning environment and efficiency. Revisions in student assessment systems, teacher and leadership training, and analysis of student achievement data would fall into those categories.
Once schools require “intensive” interventions, they could be required to extend the school year or lengthen the school day, restructure the organization of the school, reopen the school as a charter school, replace school staff or enter into a contract to have an outside entity operate the school.
Schools that do not meet adequate yearly progress in math or literacy after being in the fifth year of targeted intensive improvement or in the fifth year of whole school intensive improvement will become “state directed” schools, according to the newly approved Arkansas plan.
In those cases, the state can appoint a school-improvement director to guide the school to generate higher student achievement. Additionally, the state will direct a school team to participate in a summer leadership institute. The state will determine how federal and state improvement funds will be used at the school and whether staff must be replaced, or the school converted to a charter school, consolidated or closed.
A school’s current classification in the improvement program will be the starting point for the reclassification of new labels and interventions. For example, if a school is currently in School Improvement Year 2 this year and it doesn’t improve, it would be classified as Targeted Improvement Year 3 or Whole School improvement Year 3 the following year.
In approving the Arkansas pilot program for use through the 2012-13 school year, the U.S. Education Department also approved a “flip” in the order of services that the schools in the first year of school improvement are required to offer. As a result, Arkansas schools must pay for after-school tutoring services for their pupils in the first year the school is identified as needing improvement. In the second year, the school must additionally offer students the opportunity to transfer to a higher achieving school if there is one in the district.
Up until now, the transfer option was offered in the first year and the tutoring services were an added option in the second year of improvement.
