State calculations give schools break on AYP

Jefferson and Blanchard elementary schools in Cape Girardeau benefited from a change in state calculations that allowed the two schools to make sufficient academic progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act even though most of the students failed to meet the proficiency target.

"The scores didn't change, just the way of figuring them," said Cape Girardeau School District superintendent Dr. David Scala.

As a result, the district won't transfer any students from those schools to better performing elementary schools in the district next semester.

Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education officials say that's because of a "safe harbor" provision in the federal law that rewards schools for improving test scores even while failing to meet the target goals established in that state.

The state will raise target goals even higher next year. The targets will increase from 34.7 percent to 42.9 percent proficiency in communication arts and from 26.6 percent to 35.8 percent proficiency in math.

DESE officials say it will be harder then for schools to meet proficiency standards even with the help of a "safe harbor" provision.

As a result, the district may have to consider student transfers from Jefferson and Blanchard schools again next fall if proficiency scores remain low, state education officials said.

Cape Girardeau school officials acknowledged that possibility Wednesday. "We can't relax," Scala said. The district, he said, must continue to work to improve students' test scores.

Starting this calendar year, Missouri began testing all students in grades three through eight rather than just in certain grades.

That allowed DESE to request and receive permission from the U.S. Department of Education to use "safe harbor" calculations in determining if schools had made adequate yearly progress, officials said.

DESE made the request to federal officials after releasing preliminary results of Missouri Assessment Program scores to school districts in September.

Cape Girardeau school officials informed parents of transfer options this fall and went so far as to take requests from parents.

District officials prepared for a handful of transfers. But on Monday DESE informed them that they no longer had to transfer students because the two elementary schools had made sufficient academic progress as calculated by the state.

Federal education officials informed DESE in late October that the agency could use the "safe harbor" provision, said Dr. Andrea Wood, director of data analysis and reporting for DESE.

"Then we had to rerun the calculations for every school district in Missouri," she said.

The safe harbor provision and a confidence interval formula that accounts for a margin of error allowed Jefferson and Blanchard to make sufficient academic progress, Wood said.

Only 21.3 percent of Jefferson's tested students showed proficiency in communication arts. That was well under the state target of 34.7 percent.

But Jefferson's overall proficiency was up significantly from 2005 when only 12.5 percent of students showed proficiency in communication arts.

Under federal law, a school must show a 10 percent decrease from one year to the next in the number of students shown to be deficient in communication arts or math.

DESE's calculations showed that Jefferson's third- and fourth-grade students needed an overall proficiency of 21.2 percent to make adequate yearly progress, Wood said.

Jefferson made it by a tenth of a percent.

Various subgroups also made the grade, but only as a result of the safe harbor calculations.

Low-income students made the grade only with the use of both the confidence interval formula and the safe harbor calculation, Wood said.

At Blanchard, preliminary figures showed black students failed to meet the target goal in communication arts.

Only 16.2 percent of blacks showed proficiency in that academic subject, Wood said. Last year, 11.8 percent of blacks showed proficiency.

But even with the safe harbor provision, black students didn't meet the target goal in communication arts. However, when both the provision and the confidence interval formula are applied, black students met the proficiency requirement, Wood said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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