Area schools get report card today

Aug. 12, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Adequate Yearly Progress, the federal report card for individual schools and school districts across the country, was released to the public today.

Results for the Mat-Su Borough School District were not available at press time but may be viewed today on the school district's Web site, www.matsuk12.us, beginning at 11:30 a.m.

The much-anticipated annual progress report is part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001. AYP assesses student reading, writing and math skills to determine if individual schools make Adequate Yearly Progress according to state and federal standards.

Each year, schools must perform slightly better than the year before, as they supposedly march toward educational excellence, where no child is left behind - meaning all are proficient in reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year.

The program's goal is to revamp public education and raise the quality of the nation's schools, which have been under growing scrutiny nationwide. To this end, every year a school misses AYP, it faces increasingly stiff penalties.

Each school, however, has 31 different ways to miss AYP and if a school misses even one category, it fails the entire assessment.

Lack of student attendance on test day is one of many possible ways a school can miss AYP. Other traditionally challenging categories include scores from special education students and students with limited English speaking skills, both of which are increasing in the Mat-Su.

Last year, 18 Mat-Su schools missed AYP. For 12 schools, it was the second year in a

row they missed the mark, which forced the district, by federal mandate, to offer students from school that missed AYP the opportunity to transfer to a school that passed AYP. Fortunately for the district, few students chose to attend alternate schools last year, which saved the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in transportation costs.

Each year a school misses AYP, however, the penalties mount. Next year, depending on the current test results, some schools might have to offer individual tutoring and educational services to select students, an expensive prospect that takes money away from other programs.

For the last two years, the district received initial AYP test results in late June or early July. This year, however, with brand-new tests administered to grades 3-9, the district had to wait nearly a month longer.

Next year's results should arrive much earlier, but that won't help school officials this fall as they scramble to get roughly 15,000 students started off to a smooth year.

Depending on how many schools miss AYP, the district might have to alter or add bus routes to accommodate students whose parents choose to have kids attend schools that met AYP. The district must notify each parent as to whether their child's school made AYP.

Contact Joel Davidson at

352-2266, or joel.davidson@

frontiersman.com.