58 on list more than five years
by Cynthia Howell
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A total of 58 Arkansas public schools have failed to meet state achievement requirements for more than five years, up from just 16 a year ago, officials said Friday.
Those schools are now in line for principal changes, instructional specialists or other improvement strategies as directed by the state.
The 58 schools are among 407 of Arkansas’ 1,081 public schools identified by the Arkansas Department of Education for repeatedly failing to meet minimum achievement levels on Benchmark and End-of-Course tests that students took last spring in math and literacy.
The list of 407 schools represents a 32-school increase from the 375 schools identified in 2008 as needing improvement because of chronically low test scores.
Additionally, 23 entire school districts — including the three in Pulaski County, as well as Fort Smith, Pine Bluff and West Memphis — plus two charter schools are identified as needing improvement by the state for systemwide shortfalls in achievement.
Arkansas and the other 49 states in the nation test students and label schools and districts on the basis of student achievement because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, which calls for all students to achieve at grade levels in math and literacy by 2013-14.
This is the first year the state Education Department is using its federally approved Smart Accountability system to label schools.
The system — one of nine approved in the nation — is a more refined way of differentiating among schools on the basis of student performance and of guiding schools in the types of strategies to be used to raise achievement.
Tom Kimbrell, who became Arkansas’ education commissioner last month, said Friday at a news conference that the new system is designed to better help students at a school and give more information about the school to its community.
“We’re not saying these districts or these schools are failing,” Kimbrell said. “We are saying that they are in need of improving their instructional programs in order to meet the needs of their students.”
Kimbrell also acknowledged that the number of schools on the improvement list will continue to increase each year as the yearly achievement requirements go higher.
Schools are classified on the basis of the percentages of student subgroups that fail to meet the state’s achievement requirements in math or literacy.
The achievement requirements vary by grade and subject. For example, at least 64 percent of elementary pupils at a school had to score at a proficient or grade level on the literacy tests to avoid being identified as needing improvement.
A subgroup is made up of at least 40 students who are white, black, Hispanic, nonnative English speakers, poor as determined by their eligibility for subsidized school meals, or require special education services because of disabilities. Not all schools will have all student subgroups. Some students are in multiple subgroups.
A school is classified as needing “Targeted Improvement” if at least one but fewer than 25 percent of its subgroups fall short of the state achievement requirements.
If greater than 25 percent of the subgroups or the entire student body misses the state mark, then the school is classified as needing “Whole School Improvement.” That school will require broader efforts, such as after-school programs or summer schools, to raise achievement among students.
The state classified 140 schools as needing targeted improvement and 113 as needing whole-school improvement.
A school that lingers on the state’s list for four and five years is classified as needing “Targeted Intensive Improvement” or “Whole School Intensive Improvement.” There are 32 schools this year labeled as needing targeted intensive improvement and 64 needing wholeschool intensive improvement.
The 58 schools that have been on the state improvement list for more than five years are classified as “state directed” schools.
“In this case, the state actually takes a more active role, working directly day to day in the operations that occur in that school,” Kimbrell said.
In the state-directed schools, the Education Department has authority to require the principal and school staff to be replaced, mandate that school faculty members attend summer leadership-training programs or determine how state and federal improvement funds should be used.
Also, the state could reallocate school funds for staff training; determine whether a school should be consolidated, closed or converted to a charter school; assign a school improvement director to the school who will report to the state education commissioner; or require a school to hire an improvement specialist to work with the existing principal.
The Hughes School District is the only one, so far, in which the state has required an improvement director.
LR SCHOOLS’ STATUS
In the Little Rock School District, 36 of its 42 traditional schools are either on the state’s improvement list or are on “alert.”
Alert status means a school failed to meet the achievement standard this past spring and, if it fails again in 2010, it will be put on the improvement list. Ten Little Rock schools are in state-directed status.
In response, the district has hired three improvement specialists and is planning to hire at least one more. The specialists will advise and assist principals with classroom observations and instructional programs. At Cloverdale Middle School, which has been on the improvement list for seven years, the improvement specialist will assist in making plans to convert the school into a charter school with an aerospace education theme.
Three Little Rock schools in state-directed status — Forest Heights and Henderson Middle schools and Hall High School — aren’t required to have specialists because they have relatively new principals.
School district officials told the Little Rock School Board on Thursday that while the state has not “taken over” the district, district leaders “don’t make a move from an instructional standpoint without” consulting the state.
Little Rock Superintendent Linda Watson told the board that the district has reserved some funds to meet all the state’s requirements and recommendations.
“We need to wait to get a little bit more direction from the state on what we will have to do and then naturally we will consider all of our options, working with all the people that we have to work with,” Watson said.
Two Little Rock schools, Dodd and Romine elementaries, are among 31 Arkansas schools removed from the improvement list because of achievement gains in the past two years.
Romine Principal Lillie Scull attributed the gains in large part to an after-school tutoring program for as many as 75 pupils that is co-taught by a team of math and reading teachers.
The Cedar Park Elementary School in the Trumann School District was also among the 31, despite an earlier five-year stint on the improvement list because of low achievement among special education pupils at the campus.
The Pulaski County Special School District has nine schools classified as “state directed” among its 25 schools that are in some stage of either school improvement or alert status. The North Little Rock district has 15 schools on alert or improvement, including five in state-directed status.
CONCERN IN FORT SMITH
Five of the state-directed schools are in Fort Smith, which is also in its third year of districtwide improvement.
“Parents are concerned, and they ought to be concerned,” Fort Smith Superintendent Benny Gooden said Friday. “Unless we do something pretty miraculous, we’ll be in year four of district improvement next year.”
In Fort Smith, every possible subpopulation is represented, Gooden said. Fourteen of the district’s 26 schools are on the state improvement list and four others failed to meet standards, placing them at risk for sanctions if scores don’t improve next year.
“It gives you more ways to fail and fewer ways to succeed,” he said. “And every year, it’s a bigger gain that we’ve got to seek.”
The district uses outside consultants to motivate teachers and work with students on targeted curriculum in and outside the classroom.
“If you talk to staff members, they’ll tell you they’re pushing as hard as they can,” Gooden said. "If there were a silver bullet, we would have fired it a long time ago.”
Twenty-five school districts and open-enrollment charter schools that are on improvement are Hughes, Clarendon, Fort Smith, Little Rock, Brinkley, Forrest City, Hazen, Hope, Lafayette County, Lakeside in Chicot County, Magnolia, McGehee, North Little Rock, Osceola, Pine Bluff, Pulaski County Special, Stephens, Dreamland Academy Charter School, Hope Academy Charter School, Lee County, Marked Tree, Mineral Springs, Norphlet, Smackover, and West Memphis.
Seven additional districts on the state’s improvement list met standards this year and will be removed from the list if they repeat the feat in 2010. They are Ashdown, Dermott, Drew-Central, East Poinsett County, Fordyce, Turrell and Warren.
Two open-enrollment charters, Covenant Keepers in Little Rock and e-Stem Elementary School, are on alert status.
Information for this article was contributed by Evie Blad of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
http://showtime.arkansasonline.com/e/pdf3/schoolsayp.pdf
