DIS fails to meet federal progress goals

But Superintendent Lloyd Ramer said that list may be misleading, with one out of four schools in Tennessee failing to meet AYP as federal mandates rise.

Since federal No Child Left Behind legislation was passed in 2002, school systems throughout the country have been focusing their attention on achievement scores, adequate yearly progress and graduation rates. Benchmarks in the program are scheduled to rise until 2014, when all subgroups are required to reach 100 percent.

Dyersburg Intermediate School was among the three other Dyersburg City Schools who achieved AYP, or annual yearly progress, for students in all subgroups in 2007. But DIS students in the African American, Low Socio-Economic and Special Education subgroups in third and fourth grade failed to meet AYP in 2008 testing. Failure to meet AYP again in 2009 placed the school on the School Improvement I list.

"(This year,) No Child Left Behind goals are 86 percent for Math and 89 percent for Reading/Language Arts," said Dyersburg City Schools Superintendent Lloyd Ramer. "By 2014, (all subgroups and overall scores are) supposed to be 100 percent. And depending on how you look at it, there are as many as 37 different categories that you are evaluated in. To get into school improvement, one of those 37 subgroups has to be below the goal two years in a row.

"If you look at our scores, overall system-wide in grades three through eight, they were 89 percent in Language Arts and were 89 percent in Math," continued Ramer. "So, if you take the overall score, we've met our goals. But we did not in three of those subgroups in two grades -- third and fourth grade."

Ramer said although the school was just added to the list, there is not an inconsistency with test scores and achievement for students at DIS.

"Our grades were about the same as they were the year before and if you look at last year's report card, we scored all A's in Value Added," said Ramer. "So we expect our Value Added scores -- which are not out yet, they are still embargoed -- to still show that we are making progress. And the truth is, those students are learning. They are just not learning as fast or as much as they need to."

Because state testing begins in third grade, Dyersburg Primary School's NCLB ranking is tied to Dyersburg Intermediate School's score. DPS is considered a "feeder school" to DIS, with the success or failure of DPS programs directly affecting the foundation that DIS educators build on.

Therefore, Dyersburg Primary has also listed on the School Improvement I list.

"The other issue we have to address is the primary school," said Ramer. "There are no tests given (at DPS) since they start testing at grade three. There are no state tests that are given to those students, so the primary school is in school improvement because of the third- and fourth-graders in African American, Low Socio-Economical and Special Ed."

Although the state does not give assessment tests to students below third grade, educators at DPS do regularly check on the progress and comprehension of their students. Programs at the school are measured regularly, focusing on providing a solid base for students to build on throughout their academic careers.

"We do give our (DPS) students assessment tests," said Ramer. "And if you were to look at these, you'd see that all of our students at the primary school are making good progress, adequate progress. Already at the primary school, we are going through all the same demographics. (In fact,) we were extremely proud in kindergarten that our black males made one of our largest gains. We break it down into (the same subgroups) so we can see (our progress)."

Ramer said the success of students at Dyersburg Middle School also shows that students in the city school system are recovering and making the required gains to achieve NCLB mandates.

"The other issue is, if you look at our overall scores in grades three through eight, they are 89 percent in Language Arts and 89 percent in Math," said Ramer. "So the subgroups that were not making it in the intermediate school are now making it in the sixth grade. So those students are learning and they are catching up. It's just taking them longer to get caught up than the other students. But if they don't change the law, it will just be a matter of time before everyone is on the list. And then, they've really got a mess."

As requirements for students achieving proficient scores in the NCLB legislation continue to rise, educators throughout the country are also adjusting to additional reform.

"The other problem is, they've restructured the tests," said Ramer. "This year alone, the kids are working two grade levels above what they were doing last year. So the standards have changed which adds more intrigue to this. And then, this is the first year of the American Diploma Project. If they don't re-norm the numbers, next year will take care of virtually everybody else that has a school big enough to count (the students in the subgroups). What we are hoping is that we will get credit for the fact that we are giving tougher tests, but right now, we don't know that."

The Dyersburg City School System is known throughout the state for producing a high-quality curriculum. Dyersburg High School has twice been named a Blue Ribbon School and was the first school in the state to offer Mandarin Chinese. DHS students regularly perform well above the state average on ACT test scores, and DPS was recently chosen as an example to other schools in the state for its pre-K program.

In a recent SCORE report, the Dyersburg City School System also ranked favorably among systems throughout the state with similar demographics.

Dyersburg Intermediate's name on the list requires the system to provide a detailed school-improvement plan on how they plan to raise the scores of students in the targeted subgroups. The challenge for administrators is to create programs to grow the scores of students in the affected subgroups while continuing to meet the needs of students on all levels of the achievement scale.

"Our teachers really work hard," said Ramer. "We are proud of the job they are doing. It's easy for them to beat themselves over the head because the students aren't as successful as we would like them to be, but the reality is that's probably never going to happen.

"The next issue is what are we doing to continue trying to improve," continued Ramer. "We've got two reading coaches at the intermediate school to work with our language arts teachers and our language arts students and we are using our HOSTS program -- that is not a new program -- to try to target those students as early as we can. I think the danger in what we are doing and what you write is we are trying to bring that group up, but we are also trying to increase the ones that have made those goals and we are trying to continue to work with them. And that's why we have Chinese and that's why we have music and art and all of that."

In two more years, if DIS officials cannot bring up the scores of students in those three categories to meet rising NCLB mandates, both DIS and DPS will move to the School Improvement II list.

"The problem you have if you got on the list early is that they raise the standards," said Ramer. "So while we had 89 percent (in 2009), in 2010-2011 the percentage goes up to 94 percent. And then in 2013-2014, you have to actually get 100. These other kids, they are behind to begin with and they are not going to hit the 94. So when this year hits, everybody else will be there and we probably will not have been able to catch up."

Other school systems in the area with high-priority schools include two schools in Humboldt, four schools in Lauderdale County, one school in Milan and 32 schools in the Memphis City School District.