| Owen
County Elementary School principal Charlotte Elkins was looking
forward to getting the results back from the No Child Left Behind
assessments. After last year’s scores were low in math,
the teachers pulled together and really worked hard to help students
bring up their scores in the content area that was pulling them
down, she said. And they succeeded. The percentage of students
who scored proficient in math doubled.
That should have meant success on the national assessment which
sets goals that school must reach in reading and math for each
population group.
But a change in the formula that utilized scores from a group
of students who weren’t included last year caused the elementary
school to miss its targets in two of the 13 areas on which it
was assessed.
“It looks as if the elementary school didn’t do too
well when in reality they are performing very highly,” said
Mark Cooper, director of federal programs for the school system.
The scores of the group of students — 32 special education
students — were not included in last year’s calculations
because the number was too small. Cooper explained that usually
at least 60 students must be included in a subgroup for those
scores to count. An amendment this year, called the Wellstone
Amendment, allowed for those scores to be included in the calculations,
pulling the elementary school’s scores down.
“We thought we’d be in good shape,” Elkins said,
“but they just figured it differently. It’s very frustrating.
The students did the work we asked them to do. The teachers did
the work we asked them to do and we still didn’t hit our
numbers.
“The elementary school did what they had to do,” Cooper
added. “What caught them was a category that had never been
reported before.”
In Owen County, only the middle school hit all of its targets.
The high school missed one target because of graduation rates,
Cooper said.
Jo Ella Wallace, principal at the middle school, said the goal
last year was to target students who were identified as “at-risk.”
“We’ve made a conscious effort to do that,”
she said, “and I think it shows in our results.”
One of the things that helped, she added, was having the extended
school services teacher working with teachers in the building
to keep students on track.
“That program was isolated before,” Wallace said.
“Now, the ESS teacher works with the classroom teacher and
knows exactly what the student needs help with.”
Another aspect that helped, she said, was the ongoing assessments
that took place throughout the year. By the time students got
to the real test in April, they were comfortable with the testing
process, Wallace explained.
The fact that the elementary school didn’t meet all its
targets doesn’t have a lot of impact locally. Letters will
go home to parents letting them know the school missed its goals
and that students are eligible to transfer, but with only one
elementary school in the district that would be difficult.
Cooper said students could also transfer to schools in neighboring
districts, but they aren’t accepting new students at this
time.
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