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October 15, 2011
Dear Parents and Interested Citizens:
As many of you know, testing and accountability
have become very important in schools in the 21st century.
Educators and stakeholders may have differing opinions as to the
amount of testing and what the results say, but by in large, our
schools and our school system are judged at least in part by our
students’ performance on tests. This accountability is an
“alphabet soup” of terms and formulas that many do not
understand, so some clarification may help understand just what
all the scores mean.
There are two major types of accountability:
Federal and State. Federal accountability, also known as
Adequate Yearly Progress and its acronym AYP, breaks a school up
into different subgroups. The subgroups are School as a Whole,
White, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, Multiracial,
Economically Disadvantaged Students, Limited English Proficient
Students, and Students with Disabilities. Each subgroup has a
target goal (a number of students that must “pass the test”)
that must be met. If all the subgroups meet their goals and 95%
percent of the students are tested, then that school makes AYP
(Adequate Yearly Progress). A few things to note about AYP:
First, only students in grades 3-8 and 10th grade
are considered when establishing AYP. AYP does help ensure that
all students are being moved forward, and helps us as educators
focus on groups that need assistance. One particular frustration
about AYP I hear expressed often is that failure to meet even
one goal prevents a school from making AYP. While looking at
whether or not a school made AYP, one should also look at the
number of goals accomplished to get the full picture. Columbus
County Schools full AYP results are available at
http://www.columbus.k12.nc.us/ayp.
The second accountability is the state “ABC”
model. This model, while also very complicated, is based on
proficiency (reaching level 3 or 4) on all End of Grade (EOG)
tests or End of Course (EOC) tests at the high school level. The
main differences between the AYP and ABC models are that student
proficiency is considered independent of “subgroups”, and on the
high school level AYP considers just Algebra I, English I and
Writing, whereas the ABC model looks at those scores plus EOC’s
Biology, Algebra II, Civics and Economics, US History, Physical
Science.
Standards and initiatives are important, because
they provide common ground for improvement. We only become
great, however when we ensure each and every child reaches their
full potential inside and out of the classroom, as students and
as human beings. Our parents, community members, business
partners and our faith-based organizations are an essential part
of educating the whole child. I believe that if we work together
and put our children first, our students and schools will go
from “good to great”.
Alan Faulk,
Superintendent
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