Columbia Public Schools have not achieved requirements of No Child Left Behind Act

COLUMBIA — The Columbia Public School District has received the “Distinction in Performance” award based on the Missouri School Improvement Program standards for four consecutive years, but the district has yet to achieve adequate yearly progress requirements outlined by the No Child Left Behind Act.

In 2007 Columbia Public Schools met 13 of the 14 accreditation standards outlined by the state program. The goal of the program is to promote school improvement within each district and on a statewide basis. Scoring is based on resource, performance and process standards. The district did not receive a 14 because it failed to meet the No Child Left Behind Act adequate yearly progress standards on the standardized Missouri Assessment Program tests.

The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into federal law in 2002, is based on the idea that every child can learn. The goal of the law, President Bush and the U.S. Department of Education said, is to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools.
The law requires that all students read and perform in math at or above grade level by 2014, annual assessments and analysis of results to close the achievement gap, qualified teachers in core academic subjects in every classroom and timely information and options for all parents.

The act requires every state to have in place curriculum standards, grade level expectations and a comprehensive assessment system that measures reading, writing and mathematics in grades three through eight and once again at high school. Each state is allowed to develop its own method of standardized testing, as long as it fulfills these requirements.
Missouri’s assessment tests are the Missouri Assessment Program exams. Results are placed in one of four categories: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. To fulfill one of the act’s main goals, 100 percent of students must be performing at or above “proficient” by 2014.

Yearly proficiency targets are established by each individual state. Missouri’s targets in 2002 began with 18.4 percent in communication arts and 8.3 percent proficiency in mathematics. All states’ targets increase each year so that by 2014 the targets are set at 100 percent. The Columbia Public School District did not meet the 42.9 percent communication arts and 35.8 percent mathematics proficiency targets. The assessment considers ten student groups when calculating scores. These are: all students, Asian/Pacific Islander, African-American, Hispanic, American-Indian, White, economically disadvantaged, special education, limited English proficiency and other. All of these student groups must meet the yearly benchmark for a school or district to achieve adequate yearly progress. Three groups in communication arts and four groups in mathematics met the annual benchmarks for the Columbia Public School District.

Though the district as a whole did not meet the standards, 14 of the 28 schools in the Columbia Public School District did.

Overall, the state of Missouri did not meet adequate yearly progress standards because only four student groups in communications arts and four student groups in mathematics met the yearly benchmarks.
Since the first report in 2003, the Columbia Public School District has met an annual proficiency target once—in mathematics in 2006.

“Everyone in this district takes the charge of supporting all students’ learning and ensuring that all students achieve at a proficient level seriously, because this is our professional responsibility and because there are stakes for individual students relative to labels,” said Sharon Schattgen, director of research, assessment and accountability for the district. There are also consequences for schools and for the district tied to failure to meet the standards, Schattgen added.
No Child Left Behind has been both criticized and supported.

One criticism of the law has been that it narrows the curriculum to focus on preparing students for assessment tests. While the core curriculum has been emphasized, there has been a de-emphasis on other subject matters, like social studies, fine arts and foreign languages.

“I see how much time(the act) has taken away from being a total learner, student and person,” said Patricia Avery, a math teacher at Rock Bridge High School. “We focus on math, communication arts and science, but what about all of the things that make you a complete person?”

Another concern is the stigma that can be associated with not meeting adequate yearly progress standards.
“I worry about the labels that come out, like ‘You were not proficient on your (tests)’; (students) feel like failures, teachers feel like failures and schools are called failures,” said Avery. “I think we’ve become such a performance-based society, and I don’t know if that’s all good. It’s more important to have some confidence in continuing to try things.”

Additionally, many are concerned that the task of having every student performing at or above proficiency levels by 2014, or ever, is an unreachable goal both in Columbia and nationwide.

“I think that is the issue most educators have with No Child Left Behind,” said Misty Lambert, a teaching assistant with the department of agriculture education at MU. “I think most teachers would agree that we want students to do well, but it’s like asking a coach to have a perfect team every year whether or not they have ever played before. The expectation is unreasonable.”
Arguments in favor of the act emphasize that schools’ standards are improved by setting state-wide standards. Additionally, it has been suggested that increased focus on holding schools accountable will inevitably help to narrow the achievement gap and ensure the success of all students.

“The No Child Left Behind legislation has forced us to look at the performance of all students, and I think that’s a good thing,” said Schattgen.

Congress must decide whether to reauthorize the act. Some issues in discussion for reform of the law are the replacement of arbitrary proficiency targets with targets based on rates of successes achieved by the most successful schools, increases in federal funding to help schools succeed in meeting proficiency targets and revised testing methods to determine adequate yearly progress, according to the Public Education Network.
At the state level, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has taken steps to improve standardized testing methods.

For the 2008-09 school year, end-of-course assessments in Algebra 1, Biology and English 2 will replace MAP testing in the high schools. The assessments will still fulfill the act’s requirements but will be narrower in focus. While MAP tests cover a broader content range, the end-of-course assessments are targeted to specific classes students are enrolled in.
Additionally, the exams will count for a portion of students’ final grade in a given course—unlike MAP tests.

“I believe that end-of-course exams will be useful to students as well as educators,” said Schattgen. “The information that students receive will help them know how they perform relative to specific course level expectations and educators will be able to use the data to evaluate their course offerings and curriculum and instructional programs.”

State education officials are also planning to develop additional end-of-course Assessments in Algebra 2, geometry, Integrated Math 2 and 3, English 1, government and American history, which will become available during the 2009-10 school year.

In considering the act as a whole, Schattgen said, “I think the law includes a worthy goal — that all children should be proficient in reading, writing, and mathematics. I think this is a laudable objective that we as a society, and that education as a system, should strive to meet. I worry that it might not be attainable, but this doesn’t meant we shouldn’t try. I believe that the educators in this district are doing everything they can to ensure that all students are learning and to ensure that we meet this goal.”