Almost Half of Local Public Schools Miss Standards

Nearly half of Connecticut public schools did not meet improvement standards this year under the No Child Left Behind Act, whose benchmarks have become tougher than ever to reach as federal officials push Congress to overhaul the law.

The state Department of Education said on Monday that 47 percent of Connecticut's schools fell short of making "adequate yearly progress," or AYP, because their students' scores either did not improve at all, or did not improve enough to match the federal law's requirements.

That percentage is up from last year, when 28 percent of Connecticut schools fell short of the AYP benchmarks. AYP is calculated based on test participation, academic achievement, graduation rate and other statistics. But every few years, the percentage of students who must pass state tests increases.

State education officials said students are generally performing slightly better and the test results reflect a change this year in federal benchmarks. The department is trying to help 18 of the state's largest districts improve schools that have been struggling for years, Acting Commissioner George Coleman said.

The number of schools deemed as "in need of improvement" -- meaning they didn't meet federal benchmarks for at least two consecutive years -- dropped from 343 to 330, or about 34 percent.

Parents can seek special tutoring for their children or request transfers to better-performing schools if their neighborhood school is "in need of improvement," but the transfer rate is very low.
Some parents and educators have said that is because many neighboring schools are also in need of improvement, particularly in poor urban districts, so families tend to keep their children in a familiar school rather than move them to another whose performance is no better.

Progress requirements nationwide under the 2002 law will become more stringent each year through 2014, when all students are expected to be proficient on state reading and math tests.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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