ALMA — Two options regarding a student-achievement deadline under the federal No Child Left Behind Act were explained Monday afternoon to a crowd of about 100 at Alma Middle School, but most in attendance seemed still to be digesting the information.
“I was looking for a preference [between the options], and I did not get it,” said John Hoy, assistant commissioner for accountability at the Arkansas Department of Education. “I don’t know if I heard very many things I didn’t expect to hear.”
The afternoon meeting was the first of two held Monday in Alma. About 50 people attended a second meeting Monday night at which department officials explained the state’s possible options to modify its requirements under the act.
Four more public meetings on the topic will be held around the state.
The No Child Left Behind Act includes an overarching requirement that all public school students perform at grade level in math and literacy by 2013-14. The federal government in September gave states the opportunity to waive that requirement in favor of other options.
The first option involves reducing by half the percentage of students who are considered “not proficient” in math and literacy within six years, the end of the 2019-20 school year. That would apply to the overall student body at a school and each federally defined subgroup of students — white, black, Hispanic, poor, disabled and non-native English speakers.
The second option is for the state to have 100 percent of students scoring at proficient levels by the end of the 2019-20 school year.
The state also can base its waiver request on options it comes up with, but Hoy said he heard no proposals at Monday’s afternoon meeting.
Hoy likened the first option to walking toward a wall. If school children always advance halfway, they will never get to the wall, which would be 100 percent proficiency.
“It eliminates that target of 100 percent that many people think is unachievable,” he said after the meeting.
Hoy asked the crowd whether it should be a concern that schools currently at 30 percent proficiency would have to increase to 65 percent proficiency in six years, while schools at 80 percent proficiency would have to improve only by 10 percent.
The crowd was silent.
“Well, if you haven’t thought about it, let’s think about it now,” Hoy responded. “I would like to go back without being a blank slate to the group of people who are deciding these things.”
During a break in the meeting, Mark Clemmons, a curriculum coordinator in the Booneville School District, said improving the school’s achievement from its current rate of about 80 percent proficiency to 90 percent would be a challenge.
“Think of it as a high jump,” he said. “It’s a whole lot easier to get from four feet to six feet than it is to get from seven to eight feet. So while it would appear we would have less work to do, that’s not necessarily the case.”
David Woolly, superintendent of the Alma School District, agreed.
“The higher you get, the harder it is to keep getting higher,” he said of proficiency scores.
The state needs to focus on underachieving schools, Woolly said.
“The great many of our schools that are doing well deserve the right to not be leaned on all the time to do better,” he said.
Woolly said students in Alma’s schools are between 75 percent and 80 percent proficient, although Alma Middle School was ranked as underachieving because of one subcategory.
When the No Child Left Behind law was passed in 2002, educators across America knew the requirements were unachievable, Woolly said.
“It is time for it to be rewritten, reauthorized,” he said of the law. “It should have happened in 2007. Most congressmen said it needs some tweaking.”
To qualify for the waivers, a state’s proposal must include commitments to college and career-ready education standards, a system for holding schools accountable for student achievement, and a teacher and principal evaluation system that takes into account gains in student learning.
Karen Cushman, assistant commissioner for human resources/teacher license at the Arkansas Department of Education, spoke Monday afternoon about teacher evaluations.
“Most of what I’ve heard were conversations we’d already had within [the department],” she said of questions from the crowd.
The U.S. Department of Education is requiring states to design waiver plans after meetings with a wide range of groups that includes teachers, students, business leaders, community organizations and others.
State officials also are seeking advice on what the rules should be for Act 1209 of 2011, which establishes a public school teacher excellence and support system. That system for evaluating teachers — to be tested in 2013-14 and fully carried out in 2014-15 — will become part of Arkansas’ application for waivers from parts of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Last year, more than 400 of Arkansas’ nearly 1,100 schools were listed by the state as needing improvement because of low test scores.
The remaining meetings will be held next Tuesday in Arkadelphia, Dec. 1 in Monticello, Dec. 5 in Jonesboro and Dec. 6 in Maumelle.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/22/2011