Reports show that local schools are meeting goals

As education performance standards continue to increase in difficulty, local schools are working to meet the target goals set by federal legislation.

The Adequate Yearly Progress results for the 2004-05 school year yielded results with which school officials in both Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools say they’re pleased.

The standard measures yearly progress in getting nine identified student body groups to reach the grade level performance under the No Child Left Behind legislation.

In the county schools, six of the district’s 11 schools met 100 percent of the target goals for the federal measure of accountability.

Overall, the school system met 96 percent of its goals for the past school year, with three schools missing only one target goal and two schools missing several goals.

This means that out of 205 goals, the district met 196.

Superintendent Shirley Carraway said in a press release that she was pleased with the results and confident that the schools would reach 100 percent of goals soon.

Though she acknowledged that work still needs to be done, she said the district was making great progress.

Last year, county schools met 100 percent of its goals for the 2003-04 school year.

City schools lagged behind county schools slightly with seven out of nine elementary schools and three of four middle schools meeting AYP standards this year.

“The standard went up a lot this year and to only have three schools not meet AYP with a jump in the standards really made us feel good,” said Diane Villwock, director of Testing and Program Evaluation for city schools.

“On the other hand, we want all schools to meet standards.”

Every three years, target goal standards are increased.

For example, prior to this year, the target goal for reading in grades three through eight was that approximately 69 percent should be reading at grade level or above.

This year that number jumped to 81 percent.

According to legislation, all students should be meeting grade level standards by 2013-2014.

Though Villwock said feelings toward this year’s AYP results were mixed, she pointed out that this year has been better than years in the past.

During the first year of measuring these standards, the city school system had 10 schools that did not meet the target goals, Villwock said.

She said the city school district will be engaging in several initiatives to ensure the district meets all of its target goals in future school years.

She listed identifying the needs of the different subgroups and working with teachers on strategies as possible solutions to getting the district to meet 100 percent of its goals.

In addition, the district will be implementing a new system that will help to better identify the needs of individual students.

“That’s going to allow us to have data on children on a more ongoing basis,” Villwock said.

“We think that some of those things are going to be helpful.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.