Berkley School District Meets No Child Left Behind Goals

was among a number of Michigan high schools that did not meet requirements set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to 2010-2011 results released Monday by the state Department of Education.

Overall, the  met Adequate Yearly Progress benchmarks, which measure reading and math skills. , , ,  and  all hit their goals.

Schools in the district that did not meet the benchmarks include BHS and , as well as  in Southfield, which was identified for corrective action.

Michigan showed significant declines in the percentage of high schools making Adequate Yearly Progress, going from 82 percent last year to 60 percent this year, according to the Michigan Department of Education.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a federal law that authorizes funding and contains requirements for Title I and other federal educational programs.

Because Norup is a Title 1 school, meaning it receives free and reduced lunch funding, there are consequences for not meeting AYP. Those consequences can include having to show what the school is doing to improve, as well as programming and teacher reassignments.

"We are currently researching any and all actions which must be taken at NIS and BHS," BSD Director of Curriculum, Technology, Assessment & Grants Mary Beth Fitzpatrick wrote in an email to Berkley Patch.

Despite not meeting AYP goals, the high school, as well as the district, have achieved positive results during the past year.

• The percent of students who scored at or above a "proficient" level on the 2011 Michigan Merit Exam beat the state average in every category, although their scores were slightly lower than last year's results.
• also made it onto Newsweek magazine's 2011 list of America's Best High Schools.
• Michigan Educational Assessment Program test results for fall 2010 released in March show a majority of students in the met or exceeded state expectations.

AYP benchmarks examine several factors, including how well districts and schools performed on MEAP in English and math, as well as graduation and attendance rates. AYP proficiency targets increased for 2010-11 and are set to do so every school year through 2013-14.

"The work we continue to pursue is assisting the groups who did not achieve on the MEAP/MME and those conditions which caused the schools to not make AYP," Fitzpatrick wrote. "For NIS, that includes only students with disabilities in reading; For BHS, that includes only students with disabilities in math.

"This initiative of closing the achievement gap for all students is at the heart of our intervention work," she wrote.

Overall, Michigan schools saw a 7.1 percentage point decrease in students making AYP, dropping from 86 percent of schools in 2009-2010 to 79 percent in 2010-2011.

“We must continue to set high expectations for our schools so our students are prepared for the competitive global economy,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. “But we need an accurate and honest reflection of where our schools are in preparing our students.”

Despite more schools not making AYP, every school building in Michigan still received state accreditation.
Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the MDE, suggested the drop is the result of increasing proficiency target amid growing academic expectations. She said every time the state increases the target by 10 or 12 points, especially in math, there tends to be a group of students on the cusp, that when the scores increase, they just don't make it.

She said the math targets, for instance, had not increased for three years in a row, giving some students a chance to start to catch up, then they jumped significantly this past year, which put students behind again.

"We are raising the bar on what they need to know, to also raise AYP simultaneously is very, very difficult," she said.

Ellis said the state is awaiting word on whether the federal government will give Michigan a waiver on meeting proficiency targets in the next 10 years as it works on boosting overall academic performance.

She said that will allow the state to balance yearly progress with the increase in rigor in schools in Michigan are facing as the state adopts Common Core Standards.

"We want to raise the rigor of what students know, rather than lower the bar," she said.

Common Core Standards essentially means setting specific goals for what students need to know in each subject. For instance, what exactly students should know in each grade/subject to have a clear understanding of it.

This, Ellis said, will better prepare students for college and career paths, make them reading to take the national assessment test, boost ACT scores and give a better understanding of what they are being taught.