First report in Wash.'s new school progress system
SEATTLE (AP) - State education officials on Thursday released their first report for a new way in looking at how Washington public schools are doing at teaching kids reading and math.
The new school accountability system is designed to help local officials focus on closing the achievement gaps between kids of different ethnic and economic groups. It is Washington's answer to the federal education law known as "No Child Left Behind." Washington has been granted a waiver to take a different approach to identifying and helping failing schools.
The old system labeled a school or a district as failing if they did not meet dozens of testing, attendance and graduation rate goals several years in a row. The national goal was to have every kid meet state academic standards in reading and math by 2014.
The new system sets goals for closing the achievement gap between kids from different groups with a longer deadline of cutting that gap in half by the 2017-18 school year.
In exchange for the longer deadline, parents and concerned community members get several things: more transparency, more dollars to help kids in the groups that need attention, and new rules requiring districts to take a harder look at what they can do to turn the numbers around.
"This is much more of a public, transparent posting of results," said Alan Burke, deputy superintendent of K-12 education for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The main improvement, in terms of transparency is the lowering of a number that kept some testing results away from public scrutiny. Schools used to need 30 kids in any one ethnic group or in their special education or English learners category before those kids' test results were posted. Now the results from each group that has at least 20 kids is available for public scrutiny.
The results from a lot more subgroups are now online. In the past, for example, Bellingham parents wouldn't know that Kulshan Middle School's 25 black students were doing better than expected in reading and weren't reaching the goal in math.
Although schools that have the most need for improvement are highlighted in two lists posted by the state on Thursday, every school is being measured against the new "Annual Measurable Objectives."
Parents will be able to compare their neighborhood school with the school down the road and decide if they want to try to move their child to a school that is doing a better job of helping kids like them.
This information is readily available, along with lots of other information about public schools, at the Washington State Report Card online. Click on AMO in the upper right hand section of the page and then choose your school using the dropdown menu on the left side of the page.
Districts are required to send parents a letter if their schools are on one of two statewide lists:
-Focus schools are 92 schools that make up the lowest 10 percent of Washington's Title 1 schools, which are low-income schools getting extra financial help from the federal government. Focus schools have the consistently lowest performing subgroups on statewide assessments in reading and math over three years.
-Priority schools are the 46 schools that make up the lowest 5 percent of Title 1 schools in the state, based on statewide test results. They have shown a lack of progress on these tests over three years.
The state also posted a list of "reward schools," which are the 58 Title 1 schools that have either show the most progress or have top student achievement on statewide tests.
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View the Washington State School Report Card here »
The new school accountability system is designed to help local officials focus on closing the achievement gaps between kids of different ethnic and economic groups. It is Washington's answer to the federal education law known as "No Child Left Behind." Washington has been granted a waiver to take a different approach to identifying and helping failing schools.
The old system labeled a school or a district as failing if they did not meet dozens of testing, attendance and graduation rate goals several years in a row. The national goal was to have every kid meet state academic standards in reading and math by 2014.
The new system sets goals for closing the achievement gap between kids from different groups with a longer deadline of cutting that gap in half by the 2017-18 school year.
In exchange for the longer deadline, parents and concerned community members get several things: more transparency, more dollars to help kids in the groups that need attention, and new rules requiring districts to take a harder look at what they can do to turn the numbers around.
"This is much more of a public, transparent posting of results," said Alan Burke, deputy superintendent of K-12 education for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The main improvement, in terms of transparency is the lowering of a number that kept some testing results away from public scrutiny. Schools used to need 30 kids in any one ethnic group or in their special education or English learners category before those kids' test results were posted. Now the results from each group that has at least 20 kids is available for public scrutiny.
The results from a lot more subgroups are now online. In the past, for example, Bellingham parents wouldn't know that Kulshan Middle School's 25 black students were doing better than expected in reading and weren't reaching the goal in math.
Although schools that have the most need for improvement are highlighted in two lists posted by the state on Thursday, every school is being measured against the new "Annual Measurable Objectives."
Parents will be able to compare their neighborhood school with the school down the road and decide if they want to try to move their child to a school that is doing a better job of helping kids like them.
This information is readily available, along with lots of other information about public schools, at the Washington State Report Card online. Click on AMO in the upper right hand section of the page and then choose your school using the dropdown menu on the left side of the page.
Districts are required to send parents a letter if their schools are on one of two statewide lists:
-Focus schools are 92 schools that make up the lowest 10 percent of Washington's Title 1 schools, which are low-income schools getting extra financial help from the federal government. Focus schools have the consistently lowest performing subgroups on statewide assessments in reading and math over three years.
-Priority schools are the 46 schools that make up the lowest 5 percent of Title 1 schools in the state, based on statewide test results. They have shown a lack of progress on these tests over three years.
The state also posted a list of "reward schools," which are the 58 Title 1 schools that have either show the most progress or have top student achievement on statewide tests.
____
View the Washington State School Report Card here »
Sorry, but after moving my family from the east coast to Washington state, WA state has the worst teaching programs and teachers hands down. My kids made progress every year in Maryland but I don't see the same progress here. My wife was active in MD state schools and is active in WA state schools and she sees a very large difference between the quality of teachers and management staff. It is almost laughable at how bad WA state is except only for the fact that it is my kids that are suffering. WA state got the exemptions for a reason because they know their system has been failing kids for decades. I live in King country so it is not a rural issue, it is an issue with the school system having too much power in politics. I can not remember a week in the last 3 years that my kids did not come home crying at least once that week. The schools force team work on kids for some reason when they don't have the team work skills. It is one thing if they are teaching team work, but when my kids get failing grades in science and math because another team member did not do their applicable team work and the teacher fails to recognize this as the problem the teacher has failed. We as parents have brought this up to the teachers and they refuse to change the grades even when we show our kids did their part of the teams work (and in most cases more) but because the goof ball kids wanted to skate and the teachers let them our kids fail to. Good thinking there. If the economy was not bad I would either have my kids in private school or preferably leave this state in my rear view mirror and not have any regrets knowing my kids will prosper in any other state then here.
Yet another study of the state provided by the state.
Why did we scrub the WASL? Anyone remember?
The WEA made up the test, the teachers knew the answers, and the kids STILL failed. MISERABLY!
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70% failed the science and 60% the math. What did we do? Eliminate the science requirement and put off the math for two years!
Two years later, they got rid of the whole WASL!
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Now we have a NEW battery of tests, and the foxes are still guarding the henhouse!
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GOOD GRIEF people!
@bobalouie
 Teaching to the test is always a horrible method. It's best to test students against themselves. Test at the beginning of the year that has all the skills the teacher will teach by the end of the year. Give the student the exact same test the last week of school and see what the progress was.Â
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This way the teacher can teach how they want (different methods for different kids, different teaching stiles) and obviously if the kids learn most of the skills through out the year the teacher was successful. If the majority of the kids didn't learn most of the skills then the teacher was unsuccessful. Obviously there are factors like home life and poverty and if you get a class full of trouble makers (it happens...) but the general idea is keeping the results more isolated from the affects of their previous teachers failures.
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Having great schools is important but we will never have 100% success until every parent makes their child's education a priority.Â
@uumommy As a teacher, I am so thankful for your comment:) As educators, we can always make improvements just like any other profession, but ultimately a parent is their child's first teacher and they set the foundation for learning. A child is a much better performer/learner when they are raised to value their education.
Improvements? Where? When?
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Yer idea of improvements is making the parents the theachers. Why do we need you?