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Thursday, July 15, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Sun coverage
Sun archives
- High court turns down No Child Left Behind case (6-11-2010)
- ‘No Child’ law not a hit with U.S. Senate hopefuls (6-1-2010)
- School District falls short of ‘No Child’ goals (7-23-2009)
- Eight schools fail to make ‘adequate yearly progress’ (8-29-2003)
If there’s one announcement that has every principal of Clark County’s more than 350 public schools on edge, it’s whether his or her campus will have been deemed a failure by the federal government.
The Clark County School District was supposed to announce next week its annual “Adequate Yearly Progress” report cards, one measure of a school’s success in the No Child Left Behind initiative. But that announcement has been delayed until the second week of August because of a bureaucratic traffic jam at the Nevada Education Department, which has the responsibility of reviewing and verifying test results and other data used to measure school performance.
Some administrators would rather get the annual ordeal over with more quickly — especially since the district is expecting a significant jump in failing schools because of tougher standards. Last year, 171 schools did not make sufficient progress.
But district officials aren’t complaining about the delay. In fact, they say it will give them more time to review the results, hunt for procedural errors and appeal to the state on behalf of campuses with extenuating circumstances that might qualify for a break.
“It’s always such a rush to get it done,” said Sue Daellenbach, assistant superintendent for assessment and accountability. “This buys us a little time to go back through everything again and make sure we haven’t missed any opportunities.”
The school-by-school progress reports are supposed to be finalized by the state by Aug. 1. That’s being pushed to Aug. 16, Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Keith Rheault said.
As a result of the state’s budget crisis, Rheault had to give up some of his contract workers who had been assigned to review the yearly progress reports. Additionally, the same stretched staff was working feverishly to meet the deadline for the federal “Race to the Top” grant competition, which could bring hundreds of millions of dollars to public schools — money that in theory would improve student performance and mean fewer schools failing to make sufficient progress to satisfy the law.
Further complicating matters was the State Board of Education’s decision in May to change the passing score for several of the required exams, which meant a delay in the final calculations.
No Child Left Behind requires schools to demonstrate achievement both overall and by 37 student subgroups, including ethnicity, special education and socioeconomic status. Campuses that fall short are designated as needing improvement and face sanctions.
The federal law requires every student to be proficient in reading, writing and math by the 2013-14 academic year.
States were allowed to choose their route to that goal, with Nevada opting for a steady increase in the benchmark expectations every few years. This year has one of those increases, which means it will be harder for schools to hit the mark. Additionally, the feds have required Nevada to raise its minimum graduation rate for schools to 85 percent from its previous requirement of 50 percent. That’s going to be difficult for many campuses, Daellenbach said. In 2009, only 11 of the district’s 44 high schools had graduation rates of 85 percent or better.
It’s expected that the district as a whole will not make adequate progress, and will be labeled as needing improvement.
Prior to 1979, when Pres Carter formed the Dept of Education in Washington, schools were funded locally and were controlled locally. Back then our public schools turned out well-educated, competent American workers who made this country the most productive and successful nation in the world. Then, in came the bearucrats. The federal dept of education siphons off money from the states then issues federal mandates to the achools but doesn't fund them. Our once superior public school systems that were funded by local taxes and run by local school boards proved that the most effective government is the one that is closest to the people. Prior to all the federal education dept., we knew what was going on in our schools and we had input. Now it's all mandates.
We used to have a public school system that was the envy of the world. Now we have teachers who are more loyal to the union than to the kids. We have more administators than teachers. We get all kinds of bizzare programs mandated for our kids that push out the basic instruction of reading writing & arithmetic. All this courtesy of the Depts of Education federal and state.
We don't need a superintendent of this and an assistant superintendent of that. Basic education takes place in the classroom. The irony of it is that it's these paper-pushers who then turn around and tell us our schools have failed. It's them who failed us!
Yet when someone like Sharron Angle attempts to bring some common sense into thepicture and say let's get rid of the red tape that's messing up our schools and take control locally, we call her radical or uninformed.
We don't need some egghead bureaucrat who never saw the inside of a classroom to tell us our schools have failed. We can see it in our kids.
Most teachers don't care more about the union than the students. Less than half of the teachers in CCSD even belong to the union and many of the ones who are in the union are cynical about it.
JanK, I could not agree more with your second and third paragraphs.
Unfortunately you fail to consider the impact of the "no child left behind" mandates.
I believe the problem is not "government". The problem is politics. We should expect and get good government.
I have not heard a single politician running for office in the "state" of Nevada endorse dismantling CCSD. CCSD can not nor will it ever be "fixed". Southern Nevada will never be well served by the 4th largest monopoly school district with power brokers such as Sig Rogich and Gary Gray pulling the strings.
Time is to create "community" oriented school districts. Multiple, many smaller school districts with local citizen participation. Enough with the "players" such as E. Wynn and J Rogers. We will never "evolve" until the dinosaur called CCSD is deceased.
"Prior to 1979, when Pres Carter formed the Dept of Education in Washington, schools were funded locally and were controlled locally. Back then our public schools turned out well-educated, competent American workers"
Yeah, and we also had far more families with a parent at home full time, and far different demographics, and no cell phones, and college that was more affordable, and more mature parents, and...
"We used to have a public school system that was the envy of the world. Now we have teachers who are more loyal to the union than to the kids."
You're talking out of your behind. What a stupid claim. Teachers here can't even strike legally, no matter how enormously abused and overworked and underpaid they are. Yet most still show up and do their darnedest to teach kids - until half quit, of course, due to the abuse and the overwork and the low pay.
"We don't need some egghead bureaucrat who never saw the inside of a classroom to tell us our schools have failed. We can see it in our kids."
If you can see failure in your kids, maybe you ought to be looking in the mirror before assigning blame to the schools.
Agreed teacher.
JanK has a very narrow view of things.
There were many disenfranchised areas in the US in the 70's in which students failed, but I guess they were those "other" people that you didn't mix with.
Schools are still funded locally, guess it depends on how local you want them funded. If you mean just from the parents of the kids that go there, then that's a private school, and you should just say that you want an unequal system where poor people don't get educated, because that is what local funding meant in the 60's.
When it comes to bureaucracy, I notice no one ever complains about the amount of "paperpushers" and supervisors in the military. Why aren't you just as outraged at military inefficiency? We spend a lot more of our tax dollars on the military than the schools. Let's get rid of all those generals and commanders, cut the red tape and let the sergeant run it all, that's where real warfare happens anyway!
if JanK's educational ideas produce people like JanK, I think I'll vote for anyone that will do anything but that.
"the dog ate it"
"turn it in late and get half credit"
In 2009, only 11 of the district's 44 high schools had graduation rates of 85 percent or better.
It's expected that the district as a whole will not make adequate progress, and will be labeled as needing improvement.
needing improvement? gas and a match!