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Marble Falls schools meet federal progress standards

 

MARBLE FALLS — Marble Falls Independent School District students cleared a federal hurdle in the world of academic accountability this week.

 

 

The Texas Education Agency released the Adequate Yearly Progress report Thursday and all campuses met the federal standards under the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.

“I’m extremely pleased with the results,” Superintendent Ryder Warren said. “Our teachers and students have been working very hard in the classroom and it shows.”

AYP compares how a district or campus performs from each year to the next in three areas — reading/English language arts, math and graduation rates/daily attendance, officials said. Under the act, schools must demonstrate a certain level of improvement each year.

In Texas, the scores are based on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, assistant superintendent Cathy Gabro said.

The AYP accountability uses the reading/English language arts and math scores from the state accountability tests. The difference is based on the target scores, officials said.

Under the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System, districts and campuses are rated based on the percentage of  students and groups passing the appropriate TAKS subject exams. 

In order to earn an acceptable rating under the 2008 AEIS, the passing rate for all students and student groups is 70 percent for reading/ELA, 65 percent for writing, 65 percent for social studies, 50 percent for mathematics and 45 percent for science. For recognized status, it must be an across-the-board 75 percent while exemplary requires 90 percent across the board passing rate on all tests.

Those requirements have increased the last several years.

AYP requires a certain level of progress, but at different rates, officials said.

That’s one of the problems with having two accountability standards, Warren said.

“Our teachers and students are expected to achieve under two totally different accountability systems,” he said. “They really don’t mesh. The bottom line is teachers have to scramble to make sure the kids are excelling under both systems.”

While Texas accountability system has four levels (unacceptable, acceptable, recognized and exemplary), the federal systems comes down to either meeting or failing the annual standards. Each year, the AYP standards increase incrementally with the 2013-2014 annual report requiring 100 percent of students to pass the reading/ELA and math tests.

Gabro said this doesn’t give students and districts much wiggle room or even take into consideration that students are humans with human fallibility.

Districts and campuses not meeting AYP can face severe repercussions, especially if it’s two or more years in a row, Warren said.

“There are different stages of intervention,” he said. “But if a district fails to meet AYP three years in a row in the same measure, it could require an entire leadership change.”

While on the surface this might sound like a good move for the state and federal government to bring in a new administrative team, Warren said it doesn’t give even the new staff adequate time to make changes.

“Even if you bring in a hotshot principal, it will realistically take him or her five years to get a campus back on track,” he said. “Under AYP you only have three years, which really isn’t enough time.”

Marble Falls, however, isn’t faced with any of those issues at this time.

“Our kids are achieving and meeting the accountability standards,” Warren said. “(Meeting AYP) is a huge achievement for our kids, the staff and our kids’ caregivers. They are continuing to do an outstanding job.”

daniel@thepicayune.com