Sometimes 'better than ever' isn’t good enough
School district makes big gains on testing, but still falls short
By JODIE GARCIA, Herald Staff Writer
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Ottawa students performed better than ever on state tests this year — but it was not enough to get the district “off improvement,” board members were told Monday evening.
Preliminary results showed significant gains in reading and math, Jean McCally, assistant superintendent, said. She said students reached targets in those areas, even with increasing targets each year.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the nation’s schools must reach 100-percent proficiency by 2014. Targets that Kansas students must reach each year have been steadily increasing since 2002.
Ottawa has been “on improvement” since 2006 because the students with disabilities subgroup did not make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, two years in a row.
Even though individual schools may make AYP, if one subgroup doesn’t, the entire district fails.
This year, all schools made AYP, but students with disabilities didn’t meet target scores in reading, McCally said.
“We’re not special that way,” she said, adding that a lot of school districts are confronting the same problems.
McCally said students with disabilities will never be on grade level, but the Kansas Assessments are grade-level tests.
Dennis George, board member, said districts should have the goal of getting those students to the highest levels they personally can attain.
“Not everyone is going to be 100 percent in everything,” he said.
McCally said officials from the Kansas Department of Education recently visited the district and reviewed its initiatives for improvement, which include poverty training, classroom walk-throughs by principals and other strategies.
“They feel we have some good things in place,” she said.
McCally said the district should be proud of its achievements.
“Our scores were higher this year than they ever have been,” she said. “Our teachers should really feel good about what they’re doing.”
Herald staff writer Jodie Garcia can be e-mailed at jgarcia@ottawaherald.com.
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