Few area schools meet federal standards
By LEE TANT, T&D Staff Writer Thursday, October 02, 2008Nearly 85 percent of the T&D Region’s elementary and middle schools fell short of meeting No Child Left Behind’s yearly progress standards, largely due to rising English and math standards, officials say.
The results have some local school officials calling for changes to the current accountability system.
“There’s too much pressure in the name of accountability. We’ve lost the value of what the purpose (of NCLB) was and that’s to make productive citizens,” Orangeburg Consolidated School District 4 Superintendent Dr. Darrell Johnson said.
He says it forces educators to center their instruction around a single test, the PACT.
While Johnson favors the increased rigor and accountability of NCLB, he believes its standards are moving too fast to be realistic.
In fact, only six of the region’s elementary and middle schools made NCLB’s Adequate Yearly Progress, according to figures released by the state Department of Education. Three of those schools were in the Calhoun County School District.
Calhoun Superintendent Ken Westbury said his district isn’t doing anything special beyond working hard and establishing high expectations.
“If I had a magic potion I knew would work, I’d be out marketing that,” Westbury said.
Bamberg School District 1 had two of its schools meet AYP, Richard Carroll Elementary and the recently closed Ehrhardt Elementary.
Superintendent Phyllis Schwarting said there has been significant progress in closing the achievement gap between blacks and whites in her district.
“We’re very pleased with the results,” she said.
AYP is used as the measuring stick to determine whether a school is living up to NCLB’s accountability standards. PACT scores are the predominant factor in that assessment for elementary and middle schools.
AYP standards increased this year with nearly 60 percent of a school’s students required to show proficiency in English and math on the PACT.
“The standards are awful high,” said OCSD 3 Superintendent Dr. David Longshore.
St. James-Gailliard Elementary in OCSD 3 was the only elementary or middle school in Orangeburg County to make AYP this year.
Longshore says there is nothing wrong with the fact that South Carolina chose a tougher test. However, coupling that with a tougher grading system is like “double jeopardy.”
Every state sets its own standards for NCLB.
Longshore says some states have nearly all their schools make AYP because they set lax standards. To remedy that, he favors the creation of a national NCLB testing standard for all states.
OCSD 5 spokesman Greg Carson said his district is making gains on test scores. But those gains are forgotten because schools fail to make AYP, he said.
“In most cases, our kids are taking it to the next level with the PACT test. When you’ve got a target that has moved two or three levels, the next level isn’t cutting it,” Carson said.
Johnson believes the state should use a accountability system that measures whether individual students improve their test scores from year to year. He echoed Carson’s sentiments, saying his district has increased its test scores but still receives no credit for it under the current system.
“If the system is broken, then fix it up instead of penalizing schools that are working hard,” he said.
Next year, the state will have a new accountability test called the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards. It consolidates PACT’s four scoring categories into three: not met standard, met standard and exemplary. Scoring in the “met standard” category will be considered proficient.
In Calhoun, Westbury realizes meeting AYP in the future will be an uphill climb despite his district’s recent success.
“The standard for AYP will get to where it will be pretty hard for anybody to make it on a consistent basis,” he said.
High school AYP results will be released later because of data complications, according to a state Department of Education release.
T&D Staff Writer Lee Tant can be reached by e-mail at ltant@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-534-1060. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.
Schools that met standards
T&D Region schools that met No Child Left Behind’s Adequate Yearly Progress standards for the 2007-08 school year:
Ehrhardt Elementary (Bamberg 1)
Richard Carroll Elementary (Bamberg 1)
Guinyard Elementary (Calhoun)
John Ford Middle (Calhoun)
Sandy Run Elementary (Calhoun)
St. James-Gaillard Elementary (OCSD 3)
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agape wrote on Oct 9, 2008 7:04 AM:
I have been an educator for twelve years in the inner city of Atlanta Public Schools, and I have seen so many ideas, theories, and philosophies come and go.
It comes down to this old African Proverb...It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.
Before we start to point fingers at our school system lets look at the three fingers pointing back at ourselves, and ask ourselves..What have I Done to Make Our school Thrive.
Peace "
Orangeburger wrote on Oct 8, 2008 6:16 PM:
Before the wise guy asks again, "is our children learning?", we need to seriously change our focus from no child left behind to "No child's behind left alone!" It takes serious parenting to raise decent and successful children. Schools are functioning like extended social services centers. hence this bloody mess... "
minimouse wrote on Oct 8, 2008 4:51 PM:
I understand how frustrating it must be to want to have your kids in public school but not be able in good conscience to sacrifice their potential on the alter of your dream.
Perhaps parents and grand parents who really want great public schools will have to wage that war even as their kids and grandkids are in private school.
What I see happening is once a person places their kid in private school they wash their hands of all involvement in the fight to re-invent the wheel of public schools as Oburg so
plainly needs.
Great posts by everyone except skylar.
The change public schools need in this county will not be brought about by any president or any politician in washington. Only local changes will help locally. When the only people making babies are people who want to be parents.
Okay now I have managed to depress myself.
Peace out. "
redbird wrote on Oct 8, 2008 10:47 AM:
traveler wrote on Oct 8, 2008 12:33 AM:
Ask any teacher, the veterans or the newbies to the classroom, and they will agree that the key to sucessful schools and successful students is parental involvement. Unless things have changed drastically over the last few years since I managed to escape before I was totally demoralized, no amount of money will help the test scores in some of these schools.
Legislators in Washington need to implement some type of MAJOR accountability for the parents of all of these students who are on academic improvement plans, such as mandatory parenting classes.
We could not even get parents to come to school to sign the necessary documentation in order to provide services for their children. Someone needs a wakeup call! It is not an issue of racism, it is an issue of stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing after making the decision to procreate!
Apparently the thinking seems to be that it is a God given right to reproduce, but at the same time, I am sure that God also expects one to take care of what one produces !
Look at the stats!!! 3 out of every 5 teachers are leaving the classroom within the first 5 years of his or her teaching career. There is a major teaching shortage and it is only going to get worse !
What a sad state of affairs when a state cannot even get enough of its own citizens to want to go into the classrooms and work with these children. And then these poor educators from other countries, who are coming in to fill the gaps, are coming from countries where education has a high priority in the home, unlike alot of the homes in SC today.Can you imagine their frustration ?
With the state of affairs in schools today, I thank God, every day, that my children had the option of majoring in something other than education. I would have never paid for their education if they had made the choice to become a classroom teacher. I did not spend a lifetime raising my children to be subjected to the low pay, constant criticism, ridiculous standards, overwhelming parental apathy and student insubordination that the typical classroom teacher in SC faces today.
And don't assume that I am just an embittered old teacher. I am still teaching, very happily, in a school that holds students, as well as parents, to very rigid standards..and no, it is not a private school.....very, very public !!! "
skyler 6 wrote on Oct 7, 2008 11:24 AM:
OburgIT wrote on Oct 7, 2008 12:13 AM:
You must have diversity to have equality and the diversity has not been in OCSD5 (administration) for along time. I tend to agree with you about why OP was started, however from what I see that's not the case anymore, I think it's a case of what I said above, parents feeling like they don't really have a choice if they want there child to be in a controlled learning environment where the teachers still have control. Again though let me clarify I do not, do not support private school vouchers, it would simply be an open door for OP to end up in the same situation as the public schools, once you take tax dollars you're bound to many politically driven policies and procedures. More government not something I'm interested in. "
SCMOM2008 wrote on Oct 7, 2008 12:05 AM:
confisus_sum wrote on Oct 6, 2008 9:33 PM:
minimouse wrote on Oct 6, 2008 8:43 PM:
I am glad you don't want to cut funding for public schools.
Ideally we want the same thing. Good public schools. My grand kids go to Sandy Run Elementary in Calhoun county. One is 10 and the other is 7 .Both of them know how to spell definitely.
Public school has at least taught them that.
LOL "
ghostwriter wrote on Oct 6, 2008 6:32 PM:
confisus_sum wrote on Oct 6, 2008 5:07 PM:
minimouse wrote on Oct 6, 2008 2:08 PM:
Does this school now have to meet all the standards that NCLB and PASS (formerly PACT) mandate?
Has a private school ever been given a list of objectives they must meet by the government and then declared to have made AYP or not? Dont think so.
Also an alternative school? In public education that is what we used to call a reform school before political correctness took us over. Was the possible use of Ehrhardt Elementary going to be a place to put trouble makers or did you mean charter school or magnet school? Or do you mean a private school?
Lastly I fully support vouchers for public school transfers even transfers to other districts. I would try to get my kids into Calhoun County right now if they were still school aged.
You seem angry. And if you are as I suspect stuck in a school attendance zone that has very poor schools I feel your pain. Calhoun County must have had some people stand up and scream that the district fix things. I suggest that the anger you have be directed at the School boards and administrators presiding over the failure in this county's schools.
Ever been to a board meeting in your district?
Peace to you and yours! "
sweatr wrote on Oct 6, 2008 11:34 AM:
elloree wrote on Oct 5, 2008 9:39 PM:
minimouse wrote on Oct 5, 2008 4:09 PM:
I strongly disagree with vouchers for private education like Confisus and Oburgit.
If folks like these two educated individuals and the entire Orangeburg community had supported and helped guide the public schools in Orangeburg since desegregation was forced upon them, all the schools in county would be far better than they are now. Instead they and many others said “to hell with you all. We are going to make our own private school and we will pay for it.” The deterioration of our public schools in all the ways you can mention is in large measure due to the flight of the best and brightest and most of the whitest who could have had a big share in making public school in Orangeburg at least as good as in the top performing public school districts of this state. At this eleventh hour they realize that their children will have ever larger amounts of their income going to OP and other private schools to educate their grandchildren and they are trying to get the government to subsidize them with a new entitlement program called vouchers for private schools.
The U.S. Justice Department which still has a case open in Orangeburg County would call such a plan separate but equal and therefore unconstitutional.
Jump in and help the public schools with volunteering, tutoring, mentoring, discipline plans etc. Go to board meetings and suggest ways to get our standards moving forward like Calhoun County is doing. Don't stay in your ivory towers and beg for the government to pay for your special brand of education. "
oburgit wrote on Oct 4, 2008 11:51 PM:
clarke g wrote on Oct 3, 2008 4:31 PM:
I hope the school board members in place now get to continue the positive steps we have been sxperiencing.
By the way Mr. westbury it is ok to say that special things are being done by special teachers parents administrators and most of all children.
Working hard and setting high expectations is in itself something special being done in Calhoun County. But most likley the implementation of a curriculim in the district has had much to do with the success. Now give the teachers all the tools they need to really put the Anderson curriculim into action in every classroom. "
confisus_sum wrote on Oct 3, 2008 3:57 PM:
agape wrote on Oct 3, 2008 9:05 AM:
Parents, teachers, and administrators. Lets find a solution.
I have worked in education for the last 12 years and the blame game doesn't work.
The real issue is going to be that our children will not be able to compete in this world if they are not prepared. "
elloree wrote on Oct 2, 2008 6:44 PM:
confisus_sum wrote on Oct 2, 2008 4:02 PM: