Editorial: Making the grade will be hard

Friday, Oct. 10, 2003 | 5:33 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Oct. 12, 2003

Last week we learned that almost 30 percent of the schools in the Clark County School District have not shown the "adequate yearly progress" mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Year-round schools weren't included in that first grouping, and once they are it's expected that at least 100 of the county's 277 public schools will make the so-called "watch list." But a closer inspection reveals that the characterization of all these schools is not so bad once it's put into context.

The No Child Left Behind Act established broad yardsticks of academic achievement that have to be met, including school-wide progress and progress by subgroups such as special education students, ethnicity, students in the Free and Reduced Lunch program and non-native English speakers. The federal government left it up to the states to set some of the parameters to define progress, including how large each subgroup being measured should be. In the case of Nevada, as Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia has noted, state officials determined that each subgroup must have at least 25 students. In contrast, other states have subgroup minimums ranging from 45 students to as many as 400 students, a situation that makes it easier to lighten the impact of low scores -- and escape inclusion on the "watch list."

Making matters more difficult is that there is no wiggle room. For instance, there are at least 135 separate achievement categories that elementary schools must satisfy while middle and high schools must meet 90 different requirements. If a school is deficient in only one area, then the entire school is viewed as not making yearly progress. And if these schools don't make progress within a few years, then they could face federal sanctions, including a state takeover of a school that has not met the goals for five consecutive years.

The standards mean that even some of the valley's top public schools are showing up on the "watch list." Becker Middle School, designated a Blue Ribbon campus by the U.S. Education Department in 2001, and Green Valley High School, which had the most Millennium Scholars of any school in the state last year, made the list. At Green Valley High, which has 2,937 students, that school was placed on the "watch list" because 36 special education students had low math scores.

The very name of the No Child Left Behind Act is an ideal to which we all aspire, but such a lofty-sounding piece of legislation shouldn't blind us to the problems inherent in trying to make strides in every aspect of education. Accountability is important in helping bring about progress -- as is more funding for our financially strapped schools -- but the mandates also have to be grounded in reality. Nevada state officials should reassess how they're measuring progress so that what we're expecting out of our schools is within the realm of reason.