Guaranteed failure picks up the pace. From WaPo:
Friday, August 24, 2007; Page A01
The Fairfax County school system for the first time failed to meet academic goals under the No Child Left Behind Act, largely because many students with limited English skills struggled on reading tests that were given in response to a federal order, according to school officials and scores released yesterday.
Several other well-regarded Northern Virginia systems, including those in Alexandria and in Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, also fell short of target scores on last spring's Standards of Learning tests. The number of Northern Virginia schools that did not make the grade nearly doubled, rising from 76 in 2006 to 146 this year. . . .
Prince William County also just passed a local law that denying services to illegal immigrants. It made all the headlines in local papers including Washington Post and Washington Times. Fairfax tried to get Spellings to change the rules for LEP students but to no avail. Many other counties in Virginia did not meet AYP; some attribute this not only to the LEP population but also the additional new tests in grades 4, 6, and 7 for both reading/writing and math. Some school systems tried to double-dip to help avoid the negative outcome by having some students take two tests. I know this because my daughter who is in 7th grade took the Algebra I SOL and the 7th grade Math SOL. I had asked her principal if she was going to take the Geometry SOL and 8th grade math SOL in the spring of 2008 and he told me absolutely.
ReplyDeleteI really want to know the cost of one test per child. Do school systems get different rates? I wish this information was laid out for the public to see. Some corporates are making some big money!!