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State progress declines in meeting educational standards

August 12th 1:57 pm | Alaska Newspapers Staff Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

A report released today by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development says 231 of 505 public schools in Alaska made adequate yearly progress in 2010-2011 under the controversial No Child Left Behind Act.

State officials said that the percentage of schools making adequate yearly progress declined by 14.1 percentage points from the previous school year, when proficiency and graduation targets were lower.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, meanwhile was holding a news conference in Anchorage to discuss details of the Early Intervention for Graduation Success Bill which she introduced recently in Congress. Murkowski said the legislation, introduced before the August recess of Congress, would fight nationwide dropout rates by instituting preventativemeasures and proactively identify the first signs of students sliding off-course, as early as in pre-kindergarten classes.

Details of the state's progress report are contained in a report available at www.eed.state.ak.us

Every year, the state measures schools' progress toward the federal law's goal that 100 percent of students be proficient in language arts and math by spring 2014. Students' proficiency is measured by their performance in state assessments in reading, writing and math in grades 3 through 10.

Each year under No Child Left Behind, schools must meet targets for the percentage of students who are proficient, as well as targets for attendance, graduation, and participation in state assessments. In all, there are 31 targets. If schools meet all of these targets, they have made adequate yearly progress. But every few years, the targets increase, so that over time the bar for making adequate yearly progress is set higher.

State education officials said that these results notwithstanding, there was good news to report, including that: 47 schools which failed to reach student-proficiency targets in the 2009-2010 school year sufficiently improved to meet the targets in 2010-2011.

In addition, 11 other schools that had struggled in the past have now made adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years and no longer face consequences under No Child Left Behind.

The statewide graduation rate for the 2010-2011 school year was 68 percent, a one half percent increase over the previous year. In the 2010-2011 school year, 7,887 students graduated from public high schools in Alaska.

Many schools just miss making adequate yearly progress by falling short in one or two targets, the state report said.

 

Alaska Newspapers Staff can be reached at editor@alaskanewspapers.com, or by phone at 907-348-2449

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