Published Tuesday, September 30, 2008
6 more Coweta schools make AYP
The Newnan Times-Herald
Six additional Coweta County schools made "adequate yearly progress" and another came off the state's "needs improvement" list following the release on Tuesday of the Georgia Department of Education's final AYP reports.
Evans Middle, Welch Elementary, Smokey Road Middle, Madras Middle, Lee Middle and White Oak Elementary made AYP after a large number of students attended summer school classes, retested and passed the math and reading Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) given in mid-June.
East Coweta High School came off the needs improvement list because it made AYP in July. Following the summer retests, Welch Elementary also came off the NI list because it made AYP, according to the September release of the state's AYP reports.
"As we anticipated, the inclusion of retest results improved our AYP report," said Christi Hildebrand, Coweta School's testing and school improvement coordinator. "Overall, our school system and our individual schools did well on meeting No Child Left Behind requirements, and this revised report reflects that. Each of the four schools not making AYP fell short in only one area, and in most cases were off by only a very small number of students."
Coweta's 2008 graduation rate also jumped to 82.2 percent from 2007's 76 percent. Coweta's graduation rate is about seven points higher than the state's graduation rate of 75.4 percent.
Despite the improvements, retesting and appeals through the summer, the Coweta school system did not make AYP overall for 2008 because there were still some subgroups of students who failed to pass the state's math tests or didn't graduate. Those subgroups largely included students with disabilities (SWD) and English language learners (ELL).
The four schools that did not make AYP in the final reports are Arnall Middle, East Coweta Middle, Ruth Hill Elementary and Western Elementary School.
Overall, about 58 percent of the special education students and 49 percent of the ELL students in Coweta passed the math CRCTs. The school system needed the passage rates to equal or exceed 59.5 percent.
In addition, the 2008 graduation rate for the special education students was 50.8 percent, and the school system needed a rate of at least 70 percent to make AYP. The subgroup's improvement over last year was the greatest improvement overall for all subgroups. In 2007, the students had a 34.5 percent graduation rate.
To meet AYP, each school has to meet certain criteria, one of which is the 70 percent graduation rate. Academic performance as measured by results of the math and reading CRCTs is another AYP criteria.
The CRCTs are given to students in third, fifth and eighth grades. Each year, students in these key grades have to score above a certain percentage to pass the test. The tests have become more difficult year after year as the state ramps up its curriculum and testing as part of its agreement with the U.S. Department of Education to follow the No Child Left Behind Act. Under NCLB, all students, regardless of their subgroup classification, are to master certain academic standards by 2014.
If a certain percentage of students, or a particular subgroup of students, doesn't make the academic standard for a particular year, the school system or school doesn't make AYP.
The subgroups are divided racially, economically and by learning disability.
In Coweta, besides students with disabilities and ELL students, those subgroups are white, black, Hispanic and students who are economically disadvantaged. In addition, some students are classified into more than one group.
So if one of these subgroups doesn't achieve the goal established for that grade level, the school doesn't make AYP.
Schools that don't make AYP in the same subject for two more consecutive years are placed in the needs improvement status, with escalating consequences for each successive year they don't make AYP. There are different NI levels depending on how many consecutive years the school has failed to meet AYP.
Georgia schools that are classified as NI-2 or failed to meet AYP for three consecutive years must offer free tutoring in addition to the choice of transferring to another public school.
Arnall was at a NI-2 status as of the July AYP release, thereby it had to offer students the option to either transfer or get tutoring. Close to two-thirds of Arnall's special education students failed the math CRCTs and about 29 percent failed the reading CRCTs in 2008.
East Coweta suffered a similar plight with its special education students. The final report shows about 73 percent failed the math CRCTs. In addition, only half of East Coweta's black students and close to half of its poor students passed the tests. The same subgroups of students fared poorly on the reading tests. East Coweta Middle also has a NI-2 status.
Arnall and East Coweta Middle join Evans Middle as the three schools in Coweta that remain on a NI status. Evans, which made AYP after the summer retests, will need to make AYP for the 2008-2009 school year to get off the NI list.
At Ruth Hill Elementary, 51 percent of its black students and 46 percent of its poor students failed the math CRCTs.
At Western Elementary, the school didn't make AYP because about 61 percent of its black students and about 46 percent of its poor students failed the math CRCTs.
