Three of four schools meet federal standards

Three of the four schools in Alleghany County met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals for 2005-2006 in the No Child Left Behind federal testing program.

The four schools met 37 of 38 target goals, or benchmarks, set in 2001 through the federal No Child Left Behind Act. When a school misses as little as one benchmark, they do not attain AYP.

Sparta School attained 10 of its 11 target goals, falling 9.1 percent shy of attaining AYP.

Alleghany High School reached its 13 target goals, while Glade and Piney met their seven prospective target goals.

All four county schools last met their required goals during 2003-2004 testing and because this is the second consecutive year Sparta School has not met AYP, the school will enter into Title I School improvement status.

Alleghany County School Superintendent Jeff Cox noted the main impact of the status on Sparta students would be they would be given the choice of whether to attend Sparta or to attend one of the other elementary schools in the county.

"While we certainly want all of our schools to meet all of the AYP target goals, I think most people would agree that achieving 37 of 38 goals is pretty impressive," Cox said.

The federal program attempts to close achievement gaps between different groups of students and in an attempt to identify the gaps, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires schools to meet AYP goals in math and reading for 10 different subgroups. Subgroups consist of the school as a whole, white, black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, multiracial, economically disadvantaged, those who have limited English proficiency and students with disabilities.

According to Cox, the goal not met at Sparta was reading proficiency for the students with disabilities subgroup. In response to Sparta's results, Cox commented, "Sparta School's staff knew the students with disabilities subgroup was an area of concern and they worked hard to bring up the scores. We will re-focus our efforts this year to increase the scores in this subgroup, as well as the other subgroups."

Speaking of three of the four schools making the mark for AYP, Cox said, "We are fortunate in this county that all of our schools are outstanding. This year, three of them are being recognized for making AYP. Hopefully, we will be able to give them all that recognition next year."

Schools are required to make measured progress toward achieving grade level performance in reading and math in each of the aforementioned subgroups.

There are four common indicators which measure students' performance gains. These are proficiency in reading, participation in reading testing, proficiency in mathematics and a participation rate in mathematics testing. An additional indicator is factored into schools' results, attendance rate for students in the primary schools and the graduation rate for the high school.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, "Target goals change in three-year increments until 100 percent proficiency is expected by 2014. The first incremental increase took effect in 2004-05.

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