Nearly Half of Area Schools Fail Federal Standards

That’s right. Only 55% of Virginia schools met the No Child Left Behind standards, with only 18 school systems adequately meeting the standards. No school systems in the Fredericksburg area passed, although a number of individual schools did meet the federal standards:

In Stafford County, eight fully accredited schools did not make AYP. In Spotsylvania, five fully accredited schools missed the mark.

One reason is a requirement that students overall and in five subgroups meet nearly three dozen benchmarks.

Those subgroups of students are white, black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged and limited English proficiency. If one subgroup fails, the entire school fails to make AYP.

Peter Vernimb, Stafford’s director of curriculum and staff development, said he considers the results to be just one more measure of a school’s success.

“At this point, we’re only 15 benchmarks shy of a perfect score. That’s phenomenal achievement,” Vernimb said.

Edlow Barker, Spotsylvania’s assistant superintendent for instruction, said school officials are analyzing the information.

“We wish more schools had been certified [as making adequate yearly progress]. We’re going to look into the reasons,” Barker said. “We’ll develop appropriate responses that focus on improving scores in subgroups.”

To meet the federal benchmarks, at least 61 percent of students overall and in each subgroup must pass the Standards of Learning reading test. At least 59 percent must pass the SOL math test.

This is sure to become an issue in local races. Stay tuned. . .