The percentage of students passing standardized tests has been rising in both city and county school divisions, but the systems both failed to meet federal standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This marks the second year in a row that the county has fallen short, though it is appealing the decision.
| Schools that did not meet federal benchmarks:
County City |
“The school division met all of the academic indicators,” says Bruce Benson, county assistant superintendent for student learning. Despite meeting 28 of 29 criteria, Albemarle County Schools are considered to have failed because of the graduation rate of “economically disadvantaged” students, which the state gave as 59 percent for 2006-2007. “Our data looks a little bit different. Hopefully we’ll get that cleared up.”
NCLB requires schools to make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) in bringing all students up to snuff on reading and math, as measured by standardized tests. The benchmark this year was 77 percent of students in reading and 75 percent of students in math. The kicker is that all “sub-groups” of students have to demonstrate that level of proficiency—meaning that, for instance, 77 percent of students considered “economically disadvantaged” must demonstrate reading proficiency. In addition to making the grade academically, schools have to meet certain requirements for attendance and graduation rates.
District-wide, 91 percent of students passed English and 89 percent passed math in the county. In the city, 82 percent of students passed English and 78 percent passed math.
Six of 25 county schools did not make AYP, including all of the middle schools except Sutherland, though Albemarle is also appealing the status of Burley Middle School. This is the third year in a row that Greer Elementary, located off Hydraulic Road, hasn’t made AYP. Because it is a Title I school that receives federal subsidies, Greer faces greater sanctions—it will have to spend more than $200,000 on after school tutoring programs.
In the city, three schools didn’t make AYP—Buford Middle, Burnley-Moran Elementary (C-VILLE readers’ choice, incidentally, for best school) and Walker Upper Elementary. All of those schools met the federal marks in 2006-2007, and city schools are appealing the status of Buford and Burnley-Moran.
“In many instances, we are encouraged by the results,” says Gertrude Ivory, the city’s associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction. She says that city schools are particularly proud of Charlottesville High and Clark Elementary for making AYP.
Despite all the criteria, there is a lot involved with a quality education that the feds don’t measure—including foreign languages or open-ended math questions, both areas where the county schools are going beyond NCLB, according to Benson.
“If you can’t solve an open ended mathematics problem that has some authentic contexts to it, then I would argue that you really don’t understand how to use math in a way that is particularly useful,” says Benson. “I would love for us to have an expectation that every student be able to communicate in another language.”
Are the NCLB requirements too onerous? Benson is quick to respond: “No Child Left Behind could go away tomorrow and we would still have the same expectation for what goes on inside classrooms across this division, which is that every kid have an opportunity to achieve at the highest level possible. That’s my personal perspective.”
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