Some schools miss mark

MAT-SU -- Burchell High, Palmer High and Tanaina Elementary schools did not meet the most criteria in this year's Adequate Yearly Progress report for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, but both Palmer and Tanaina met and exceeded the proficiency percentile for both language arts and mathematics when looking at the school as a whole.

"The reaction from parents … has been fairly positive," said the district's public information specialist Kim Floyd. She said there have been a number of parents who have called with concerns about their child's school, but when the school's score was explained in depth, most parents hung up with a positive feeling about their school's abilities to meet AYP next time around.

AYP is mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; this is the first year school's test scores were charted as part of an attempt to have every child in the United States receive adequate schooling. Schools are required to test at least 95 percent of their students. This year schools were required to score at least a 64.03 percent proficiency in language arts and a 54.86 percent proficiency in mathematics. These percentage goals will continue to rise until the 2013-2014 school year, where every school in the U.S. will be required to reach 100 percent proficiency to meet AYP standards. Along with testing schools as a whole, students are divided into subgroups based in ethnicity, economic status and disabilities; schools must reach the proficiency goals in all subgroups in order to meet AYP. For example, a school that tests at a 91 percent language arts proficiency rating as a whole but only tests at a 24 percent proficiency rating in the students with disabilities subgroup would not reach AYP this year, regardless of the higher-than-needed percent in the overall language arts rating.

The three schools in the district that meet the least amount of AYP criteria are listed below, with details on each school's AYP numbers:

Burchell High

Burchell meet all but five of the 31 criteria needed to meet AYP. Burchell was the only school in the district that did not meet the AYP language arts proficiency percentage goal in the overall school category -- only 45 percent of Burchell's students were proficient -- however, the school did meet the AYP goal for math in the overall school category. Burchell did not test enough students as a whole, 133 of 190, and did not test enough students in the Caucasian subgroup (102 of 126), the economically disadvantaged subgroup (77 of 87) and the students with disabilities subgroup (25 of 30). The school met AYP standards in all other subgroups. Burchell is an alternative school, district chief school administrator Bob Doyle said, meaning there are many transient students that may have enrolled at the first part of the year, but were not there when the testing took place later in the year. This played a role in the lack of enough students tested, Doyle said.

Palmer High

Palmer High met all but five criteria needed to meet AYP this year, although the school did exceed both percentage proficiency goals in the overall school category -- 85 percent in language arts and 75 percent in math. The school did not test enough students overall, 492 of 521, and also did not test enough students in the Caucasian category (415 of 441) and the economically disadvantaged category (222 of 236). Palmer High did not meet AYP in the students with disabilities category in both language arts (24 percent) and math (22 percent). The school met all other AYP criteria.

Tanaina Elementary

Tanaina met all but four of the criteria needed to meet AYP this year. The school met both the language arts proficiency percentage (69 percent) and the math proficiency percentage (64 percent) in the overall school category, but did not meet the percentage for both language arts and math in either the students with disabilities category (37 percent and 32 percent) or the limited English proficiency students category (32 percent and 35 percent). The school meet all other AYP criteria.