Fifty-five percent of Virginia K-12 public schools met the federal government's definition of "adequate yearly progress," as set out in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, the Virginia Department of Education announced Thursday.
However, 82 percent of state school divisions did not meet Virginia's AYP standards, including Charlottesville City and Albemarle County Public Schools.
Virginia educators, however, contend that the overall numbers are misleading because of the method by which the AYP standards are set and do not reflect how Virginia schools performed in the past year.
The AYP tests how much schools are improving toward meeting the final goals of the NCLB Act, which are 100 percent student proficiency in reading and math nationwide by 2014.
To meet the standard of making adequate yearly progress, a school had to meet between 29 and 35 benchmarks. In Virginia, 61 percent of students at a school needed to demonstrate proficiency in reading and 59 percent of students had to do the same in math. Each of six subgroups --white students, black students, Hispanic students, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students and students with limited English proficiency--had to meet the same standards as the overall student body.
School divisions, as well as the entire Commonwealth, had to meet the same requirements for their entire student body.
Failing a single benchmark meant that a school or school division did not make adequate yearly progress.
Virginia as a whole did not meet the AYP guidelines.
Many states, including Virginia, however, objected to another federal requirement that at least 95 percent of students with limited English proficiency take Virginia SOL tests in reading and math. Before the AYP, Virginia exempted students who spoke little or no English from SOL tests for one year.
For schools that failed, "it was certainly a large factor because of the 95 percent requirement," said Charles Pyle, director of communications for the Virginia Department of Education.
Out of 25 Albemarle County schools, 19 met the requirements while four did not. Data was not available for two schools because not enough students took SOL testing. For Charlottesville, data was only available for five out of nine schools, two of which met the requirements.
"Overall, we are very pleased about how the Albemarle County results compare against the federal requirements," said Kevin Hughes, executive director of division and school improvement for Albemarle County Public Schools.
Hughes emphasized that, county-wide, most of the subgroups met the federal requirements and that the school system would continue to help both special education and African-American students improve their scores.
Still, Hughes noted that "the improvement efforts we have underway are what will get us there."
Pyle and Hughes both noted that, within each state, different AYP objectives were established based on the level of achievement in that state.
"Only a dozen or so states had as high objectives as Virginia," Pyle said. Virginia's "higher benchmarks were because of higher achievement."
Education Prof. Deborah Verstegen noted that judging progress by the single AYP label was difficult and suggested that more information would come from looking at specific subgroups.
"Our schools have a lot to be proud of given the level of state funding," Verstegen said.
AYP reports will be issued every year until the federal NCLB goals are met.
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