Feel-good flags proposed for public schools

Emily Richmond, Las Vegas Sun

Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

Flags may soon fly high over Clark County's public schools, honoring academic achievement as defined by local - as opposed to federal - standards.

Clark County School District officials say this isn't an attempt to falsely bolster the self-esteem of students or staff, but to reward schools that show improvement - even if the federal government's benchmarks are not met.

Consider it the Clark County grading curve.

The Clark County School Board will vote Oct. 12 on the proposal. Under the formula being considered, the district would order 248 flags, to distribute to schools that have done well over the past year. Of those, 182 would go to schools that passed muster on federal testing. (Six would get purple flags for being exemplary, 34 would get blue flags for high achievement and 142 would get red flags for having passed the minimum standard for adequate yearly progress, or AYP.)

And for good measure, the School Board will consider ordering another 66 flags for schools that didn't quite make the national grade but showed a minimum of 5 percent improvement in performance. Those flags would be green, orange or silver-white, depending on the level of progress demonstrated.

That would leave about 70 schools without an honorary banner.

The total cost of the flags depends on the quality of the materials, ranging from $7,687 for a one-sided basic design to $48,250 for hand-sewn nylon.

Sheila Moulton, School Board vice president, said she supported the proposal when it was first suggested by President Ruth Johnson. Both Johnson and Moulton, like many other school officials, are frustrated by aspects of the federal No Child Left Behind Act that requires that schools be tested for academic progress.

The so-called AYP ( adequate yearly progress) rankings are criticized by many because a school might improve, but not sufficiently to satisfy national criteria, and thus the campus is labeled a statistical failure. An entire school of otherwise high achievers can also fail to make the AYP standards - and face the loss of federal funds - just because a small subgroup of students falls short of the mark.

And because the law requires that 95 percent of a school's students and its demographic subgroups participate in the tests, there have been instances where absences by two students meant the entire school failed.

"If there's something we can do to recognize achievement, we should do it," Moulton says, even if the achievement doesn't meet national expectations.

To Martin Dean Dupalo, a political science instructor at UNLV who is challenging Moulton for the District G seat, the flags are a waste of time and money.

"This is ridiculous," Dupalo said. "They have a 47 percent failure rate and they're patting themselves on the back?"

Others don't see it that way.

"No Child Left Behind gives people a pretty good idea of progress in some areas but it doesn't take into account the phenomenal achievements schools make in between," said Joyce Haldeman, executive director of community and government relations for the Clark County School District who helped develop the flag proposal. "If schools don't make AYP, people are prone to think they haven't accomplished anything, and that is not the case."

So the district may decide for itself what qualifies as academic progress, rather than limit the flags to the schools that met the federal government's definition.

The flag proposal corresponds with a request by Nevada officials - backed by no less than the state's congressional delegation - to measure the Silver State's schools differently. Rather than having to achieve hard targets, schools would be assessed by the percentage of improvement demonstrated over the prior year's test scores. The federal Education Department must approve the request.

What's at stake with test results isn't just a school's collective ego, but the self-esteem of a child who attends a school that statistically comes up short, says Roisin O'Loughlin, founder and executive director of the Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development in Las Vegas.

"To pigeonhole a student as a success or a failure is a dangerous thing," said O'Loughlin, who was a high school teacher and principal in Ireland before settling in Clark County in 1991. "I know the intention of No Child Left Behind is to raise standards, but human beings are much more complex than those labels."

O'Loughlin said she's well aware of the pressures under which educators are laboring, as she counsels a number of local principals.

"They have teachers nearly killing themselves, they're trying so hard to teach, and then someone comes in and says, 'You don't pass,' " O'Loughlin said. "It's heartbreaking and demoralizing."

She praised the School District's plan to reward improvement as well as hitting the target.

In fact, she said, the flag proposal doesn't go far enough.

"Are we educating students to pass exams, or educating them for life?" said O'Loughlin. "We should be giving flags for demonstrating a spirit of cooperation, leadership, concern for the environment."

That doesn't mean the flags should be viewed as tokens.

"Children are very clever - they know if they're getting praise for no reason, and it means less to them," O'Loughlin said.