Preliminary Adequate Yearly Progress reports were released yesterday by the Missouri Department of Education. While the data shows that many school districts are making gains, only one Polk County school district met AYP requirements this year —  requirements that school superintendents say are not realistic.

The Marion C. Early School District in Morrisville met all of the federally mandated proficiency targets set up by the No Child Left Behind law, with the county’s other districts not far behind.

The law says that 100 percent of students must test proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. Districts must also maintain a certain attendance rate (93 percent) and graduation rate (85 percent). AYP rates schools in the areas of communication arts, mathematics, attendance rate and graduation rate. Each district is responsible for achieving the benchmark proficiency levels, this year 75.5 percent for communication arts and 72.5 percent for mathematics.

Data is divided by sub-group, if there are 50 or more students in the sub-group in the district. Sub-groups include Asian/Pacific Islander, black, Hispanic, American Indian, white, other/non-responsive, free/reduced lunch, students with disabilities/individual education plans (IEP) and students with limited English proficiency. Districts must meet benchmark requirements in all sub-groups applicable to each school to meet the AYP requirement.

Schools can score below the yearly proficiency target and still make goal with the help of one of four MET models: confidence interval, growth model, Safe Harbor provision or confidence interval for Safe Harbor. Under the confidence interval, a standard measure of error is used to help scores meet goal. The growth model helps students make goal who have shown to be on target to meet goal by the end of their eighth-grade year. Safe Harbor decreases the basic and below-basic scores by 10 percent, allowing students to reach a proficient or advanced level.

If school districts do not meet all benchmark levels, they enter into certain levels of school improvement. Each level has a stipulation with it, such as providing more educational assistance for IEP students.

A majority of Missouri’s school districts are in some form of school improvement because of what some superintendents call “unattainable benchmarks.” Many school administrators believe a better measure of student achievement is the state’s annual performance report.

Marion C. Early R-5

For the first time since 2004 (when benchmarks were just 20.4 and 10.3 percent, respectively) the Marion C. Early School District has met all four benchmark goals. The district as a whole made gains of more than 10 percent in mathematics and about 9 percent in communication arts — that along with MET models helped the district meet all of 2011’s AYP standards.

“It’s great,” Eric Kurre, Marion C. Early superintendent, said. “We worked very hard district wide, the staff has, parents have, on increasing our scores. It’s nice to see that start to pay off.”

Kurre said that MAP scores in communication arts and mathematics have increased significantly during the past three years. The district, which was once testing well below the state average, now meets it.

“The staff has worked really hard to change the culture of learning here,” he said. “It shows that we are on the right track. Learning and consistent improvement is becoming ingrained in our students and the community in general.”

Kurre said that although the district is not yet where it wants to be, they will keep pressing on to increase scores.

“I’m a firm believer that success builds success,” he said. “We’ve put our staff under a lot of stress the past couple years, with the non-negotiables and other strategies [to help kids learn]. It’s good to see that success, that those initiatives pay off. When the students are successful, the teachers are, too.”