Vermont’s Department of Education has released the latest “school accountability determinations” for the state’s schools as part of the No Child Left Behind Act requirements. The determinations are also known as adequate yearly progress or AYP.
This year, roughly the same number of schools - 215 - failed to meet progress standards based on tests taken last year by Vermont public school students in grades 3-8 and 11.
The standards are based on NCLB and target scores for each school increase every three years.
The same number of schools failed this year because the target scores for schools did not change year over year.
Seventeen schools in Vermont, including Montpelier High and Cavendish Elementary School, got off the failure list this year.
Twenty-three schools did not make AYP for the first time in 2012.
A school that does not make adequate progress for two years in a row gets placed in “school Improvement status” and is required to take specific actions that are supposed to improve student performance in the areas found lacking.
The state has placed 198 schools into “school Improvement status” in at least one area, including 101 of them for the first time.
“Vermont has maintained high standards and a rigorous assessment of those standards. It is not surprising that as we get closer to the 2014 NCLB expectation of 100 percent proficiency, we will continue to see more schools not meeting AYP.” said Commissioner Armando Vilaseca in a press release.
“Vermont will revise its accountability system when the reauthorization of the ESEA provides us with that opportunity. Our plan has always been to design a system that does not stress a single measure using a standardized test to determine our students’, our schools’, or our state’s success in meeting standards.”