Warsaw Community Schools made Adequate Yearly Progress this year.
During his presentation on ISTEP and AYP results, Chief Accountability Officer Tom Kline also said three of the 11 schools in the district made AYP.
As part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, AYP is determined for each school in the country. Indiana uses ISTEP to determine AYP. If a school or school corporation continuously does not meet AYP, it faces sanctions by the state.
Kline said AYP is determined by student performance and student participation rates.
The performance rates include ISTEP+ English/language arts in third through eighth grade, ISTEP+ mathematics in third through eighth, Algebra I End of Course Assessment in high school and English 10 ECA in high school.
Other rates that must be made for AYP include 95 percent of students must take the test, 95 percent attendance rate in the elementary and middle schools, and 78.9 percent graduation rate at the high school.
“That is progressively increasing by 7 percent next year and up to 90 percent the following year,” Kline said.
To make AYP, schools must make every subgroup. A subgroup must contain 30 students and includes economic background, race/ethnicity, limited English proficiency and special education.
By 2013-14, 100 percent of Indiana students must pass ISTEP+ tests for schools to make AYP.
Kline said the three Warsaw schools making AYP include Eisenhower (15 of 15 categories), Lincoln (19 of 19) and Washington (13 of 13).
According to information in a packet provided by Kline, Edgewood Middle School missed AYP in six categories, while Lakeview Middle School also missed AYP in six categories.
At the elementary schools, Claypool missed AYP in three categories; Jefferson missed it in seven categories; Harrison missed it in two categories; and Leesburg missed it in four categories.
Madison Elementary only missed AYP in one category, math – Hispanics. The school made AYP in 22 of 23 subgroups. Kline said Madison only missed its one category by two students, and those students only missed it by a few questions.
“This was a tremendous improvement by Madison,” Kline said.
Warsaw Community High School missed AYP in one category, special education English and language arts, and in four participation categories. The high school made AYP in 18 of 23 categories.
In order to make AYP at the district level, the district must pass AYP in at least one of three levels of each of the 25 categories. The three levels include elementary, middle and high. In 2011, Kline reiterated, WCS made AYP.
In English/language arts, WCS made AYP in at least two levels in every category.
In mathematics, WCS had three categories in which only our high school students made AYP.
“That’s significant because in each of those three categories,” Kline said, “they did not make it last year.”
All three came because of a 30-percent increase in ECA Algebra I scores.
Kline then reviewed several tables and charts showing and comparing how well WCS did.
In the past three years, Indiana’s Algebra ECA passing percentages were 41, 62 and 61. WCS’s percentages were 44, 69 and 74.
Looking at the three-year trend, WCS’s English/language arts pass percentage was 72.5 in 2009, 75.5 in 2010 and 77.2 percent in 2011. By grade, every grade from third through eighth increased from 2009 to 2011, except sixth and eighth grade in 2011. Kline said that may be because the students took a computerized test.
The math ISTEP pass percentages were 75.4 in 2009, 76.6 in 2010 and 74.5 in 2011. By grade, every grade from third through eighth decreased in 2011 compared to 2010, except sixth grade. Kline said that may be because of the Apangea math, which had students doing substantially more math problems on the computer over the year.
While there are some good things about No Child Left Behind, Kline said it’s not possible to expect 100 percent of students to make it by 2013-14. President Obama wants to rewrite the Act, but that would require Democrats and Republicans to agree. That may take awhile, he said.
Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz said that while the requirement of 100 percent of students be proficient by 2013-14 is a worthy goal, it’s not likely that every child will be. No Child, however, does make schools take a look at what they’re doing and that’s a good thing.
