Some schools ‘moving backwards’
Fifty-two D.C. schools met federal benchmarks for academic improvement in reading, math or both subjects, an increase of 15 schools over 2010.
But an increasing number of schools were deemed needing improvement, and the achievement gap between white students and minority groups remained in D.C. Public Schools, which lagged the city’s charter schools.
Schools achieve Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, in reading or math if the percentage of students scoring “proficient” or “advanced” on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System meets or exceeds targeted goals, graduation rates and attendance requirements.
“AYP scores alone do not tell a school’s full story,” said State Superintendent Hosanna Mahaley, adding that officials and individual schools will analyze the new wave of data to flesh out “multiyear trends further to determine appropriate next steps.”
The 187 schools assessed by the 2011 standardized tests include both D.C. Public Schools and public charter schools. Across the city, 46 percent of elementary charter students were proficient in math, with 46 percent in reading; in DCPS, 42 percent of students were proficient in elementary math, and 43 percent cut it with elementary reading.
D.C. Public Schools saw fairly flat gains over 2010 on the 2011 exams. Charter students’ performance increased by several points over 2010, although DCPS saw larger five-year gains.
“We have seen marked improvement in quite a number of schools, and that is testament to the work that school leaders are doing to raise student achievement,” said Darren Woodruff, chairman of the charter school board’s Schools Committee.
| Achievement gap | ||||||||
| Percentage of D.C. Public Schools deemed “proficient” toward meeting Adequate Yearly Progress: | ||||||||
| Elementary reading | Elementary math | Secondary reading | Secondary math | |||||
| Asian | 2011: 73.28% | 2011: 82.06% | 2011: 67.26% | 2011: 85.63% | ||||
| 2010: 77.57% | 2010: 82.33% | 2010: 77.22% | 2010: 84.18% | |||||
| Black | 2011: 35.80% | 2011: 33.49% | 2011: 38.17% | 2011: 39.79% | ||||
| 2010: 38.49% | 2010: 36.65% | 2010: 38.07% | 2010: 37.61% | |||||
| Hispanic | 2011: 46.88% | 2011: 52.89% | 2011: 48.69% | 2011: 52.21% | ||||
| 2010: 45.00% | 2010: 48.50% | 2010: 39.33% | 2010: 46.58% | |||||
| White | 2011: 89.69% | 2011: 88.63% | 2011: 87.28% | 2011: 89.04% | ||||
| 2010: 88.46% | 2010: 87.83% | 2010: 90.33% | 2010: 88.98% | |||||
| Total | 2011: 43.04% | 2011: 42.34% | 2011: 44.24% | 2011: 46.42% | ||||
| 2010: 44.09% | 2010: 43.19% | 2010: 43.30% | 2010: 43.75% | |||||
| Source: Office of the State Superintendent for Education | ||||||||
According to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, 163 schools are labeled “School In Need of Improvement” for failing to meet AYP for two or more consecutive years. Twenty-eight of those schools are new in 2011; just one school jumped off the list for good performance.
D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown said he had “deep concerns” that some schools were “moving backwards.”
“Performance measures should go up, or at least stabilize, but never should they shift downward,” Brown said. “It is an abysmal situation where so many of our students are not proficient in math or reading.”
DCPS has never made AYP — not atypical nationwide, and evidence that many say prove the federal No Child Left Behind Act is misguided. At the elementary level, only white students met the benchmark; among older students, white and Hispanic students passed proficiency goals.
Black students failed to meet AYP for the third year in a row, and a 50 percentage point spread remains between white and black students on some of the tests.
