AYP results 2011-School officials see improvement in AYP results
Schools across the country had difficulty this year reaching the federal “adequate yearly progress” benchmark, including several in Carroll County, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t improving.Kathy Rogers, assistant superintendent of Teaching and Learning at Carroll County Schools, said that between grades third to eighth, the district met every academic standard for all the subgroups for the first time, a huge accomplishment and something to celebrate.
Fourteen of the 24 county schools made AYP status.
The preliminary results released this week by the state do not yet include the summer graduation scores or the re-testing scores. The final results will not be released until September.
Wina Low, director of Student Services and systemwide coordinator of standardized testing for Carrollton City Schools, said she hopes the re-configured results will push all four of the city schools into AYP.
Carrollton Elementary School made AYP this year after failing to make it last year.
The middle school has made AYP every year the standard has been in existence, about eight years, Low said.
The junior high was a few students short in one subgroup in one subject, math. The students have retested and feel confident, Low said.
The high school made AYP in eight of nine categories, so she is hopeful to make AYP there, too. About six of the economically disadvantage students needed to pass the re-testing in English language arts.
“We’re extremely proud of our students and teachers and the parental support we had and we will continue to achieve,” Low said.
Mark Albertus, principal at Carrollton High School, said he was excited to see the results because the scores have improved in numerous areas.
“We did extremely well with the new math curriculum that was being tested for the first time,” Albertus said. It was a focus this year within the subgroups.
“It’s amazing results. All the credit goes to the teachers and the students,” he said. “We’ll continue to provide the best instruction we can, as we have in the past, to all students.”
Low said the graduation score was lower than last year, but over the state benchmark. Last year, the graduation rate was 89.4 percent. This year it was 85.1 percent, a difference of about 10. That number is expected to increase with the results of the summer graduation.
The Carroll County system graduation rate was 75 percent, 10 percentage points below the state requirement, but the first of the summer graduations have already been complete, increasing the percentage to about 78 percent. Rogers said the second summer graduation is likely to move that number even higher, which would put it over last year’s score.
“For the past five years, we’ve seen dramatically increasing graduation rates,” said Carroll County Superintendent Scott Cowart.
In addition to improving graduation rates, good news comes with the knowledge that, for the second year in a row, Villa Rica Middle School has made AYP. It has been removed from the needs improvement list, Rogers said.
She said analyzing the results of AYP can be difficult because one student in one subject can keep an entire school from achieving the AYP label. That’s what happened in Central Middle School this year.
There are eight subgroups. To have a subgroup, the students must have at least 40 students in the group or 10 percent of the school’s population.
Cowart said the principals and assistant principals have already been working to analyze the AYP data. Most of the county schools have already determined which areas need the most focus in the coming year.
“We’re not where we want to be, but we’re pleased with the improvements,” Cowart said.
Across the state and the nation, AYP results are lower this year than last year. AYP is part of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which aims to close the achievement gap in subgroups. All children are suppose to be on grade level in math and reading by 2014.
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