Test score freeze let?s schools work on proficiency

Iowa Department of Education filed a request to waive key provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind requirements in February, was denied June 21, and Monday, Iowa was granted a one-year freeze of target increases in testing scores.

What does this mean for local schools, students and teachers?

?The one-year freeze on proficiency levels provides schools and the state Legislature a chance to work on this,? said Fairfield Community School District Superintendent Art Sathoff.

?Fairfield?s grades 3-11 scores in math and reading range from 69.6 percent to 82.1 percent of students proficient,? he said. ?The Iowa Test had changes this year, and ?proficient? no longer means 41st percentile and above. Schools need to look at standard scores and grade level growth to determine proficiency.

?NCLB requires reporting of grades 3-8 and 11 in math and reading. This year?s NCLB proficiency targets are around 80 percent for the different grade levels and content areas. Without the recently granted one-year freeze, proficiency targets would have moved to 87 percent next year,? said Sathoff.

Next year?s proficiency levels for Iowa?s students will remain at this year?s 80 percent. NCLB, initiated in 2001, has a schedule of increasing targets until 100 percent of students test proficiently in 2014.

?Schools must meet all targets in every student group and must test at least 95 percent of students in every group to meet adequate yearly progress,? said Sathoff. ?Schools are currently waiting on AYP determinations from the Iowa Department of Education. Locally, there has been an achievement gap within some low social economic status and Individualized Education Plan groups, though all student groups need to show improvement.?

He said Fairfield Community School District Curriculum Director Marci Dunlap would provide more in-depth information on the subject at the regular school board meeting July 16.

Information on Iowa Department of Education website states, ?Under NCLB, public school districts and public schools must report the academic progress of all students in grades 3 to 8 and 11 and students by subgroups and their test participation rates in the subject areas of reading and mathematics. Public elementary and middle school average daily attendance rates and public high school graduation rates are the additional indicators for public school districts.

?If a school does not meet the annual adequate yearly progress state participation goals or state annual measurable objectives in reading or mathematics assessment in either the ?all students? group or any one of the subgroups for two consecutive years, it is designated as a school in need of assistance, which is also referred to as SINA.?

Fairfield Middle School is designated a school in need of assistance for not meeting state annual measurable objectives in math and reading.

?The middle school is making progress,? said Sathoff. ?Of course, as the No Child Left Behind trajectories increase, more and more schools will not meet the target.

?The governor and Legislature have a detailed blueprint for Iowa schools. The department of education doesn?t feel it got everything it wanted.?

One of Gov. Terry Branstad?s positions in the Iowa education blueprint is annual evaluation of every teacher.

?Exactly what that will look like and what is acceptable is not determined,? said Sathoff. ?That?s one of the reasons Iowa?s waiver request didn?t pass.?

As of this morning, according to Time magazine online, Washington and Wisconsin were added to the list of states with approved waivers, bringing the total to 26 states.

?The education department began granting the waivers in February in exchange for promises from states to improve how they prepare and evaluate students. The executive action by President Obama is part of an ongoing effort to act on his own when Congress is rebuffing him,? wrote Donna Gordon Blankinship of the Associated Press, for Time.

?The administration says the waivers are a temporary measure while Education Secretary Arne Duncan continues to work with Congress to rewrite the law, which is formally known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

??A strong, bipartisan reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act remains the best path forward in education reform, but as 26 states have now demonstrated, our kids can?t wait any longer for Congress to act,? Duncan said in a statement released today.

?Members of both parties agree the No Child Left Behind law is broken, but have been unable to agree on how to fix it. While it has been praised for focusing on the performance of minorities, low-income students, English language learners and special education students, it has also led to a number of schools being labeled as ?failing.?

?Critics also say the law has had the unintended effect of encouraging instructors to teach to the test and has led schools to narrow their curricula.?

Jason Glass, director of Iowa Department of Education, writes on the department?s website, ?Although reviewers [at the U.S. Department of Education] applauded Iowa?s high-quality proposal, approval wasn?t possible because the Iowa Legislature did not provide this agency the authority to meet waiver requirements relating to evaluation.

?Changes to the evaluation system will be studied by a task force and then brought back to legislators for the 2013 session,? said Glass.

He calls the 2014 target of 100 percent of students testing proficient an ?unrealistic requirement.?

Glass says the one-year freeze on Iowa?s proficiency levels is good news.

?To be clear,? said Glass, ?freezing proficiency targets is a temporary and stopgap measure that really doesn?t address the root of the problem. As a nation, we must make reauthorization and significant changes to the No Child Left Behind law a priority and address its flaws head on.

?Our children deserve better than tinkering and inaction. And our state deserves more than a one-size-fits-all accountability framework that unfairly blames schools serving more at-risk and disadvantaged students.?