Grade schools fall to ‘failing’ list

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Updated: December 4, 2011 10:46AM

In three years, the federal government is going to declare every school in the nation a failure.

In 2011, however, Stevenson High School is still among the dwindling ranks of ones it labels a success.

The Patriots met the requirements of “adequate yearly progress” as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act this year, pulling themselves out of the ranks of “failing” schools that they fell into in 2010.

However, two local elementary districts, Aptakisic-Tripp 102 and Kildeer-Countryside 96, took the inevitable plunge this year; and Buffalo Grove High School remained on the “failing” list.

“It’s nice that we made it, but we’re not going to stop school to celebrate,” said Jim Conrey, Stevenson’s spokesman.

Several local school officials said that, while they are struggling to get their students back into “passing” shape, most American educators were expecting this.

“A lot of people knew early on that when we got to this phase, it was not going to be pretty,” said Bob Hudson, assistant superintendent at Aptakisic-Tripp.

“‘Failure’ is a little bit of a harsh word for us at the moment,” said Paul Louis, director of curriculum and assessment in District 96. “‘We didn’t make AYP’, we’ve been saying it that way.”

Educators who hold NCLB in any kind of regard are hard to find, especially as its expectations march annually toward the realm of the impossible.

In Illinois, schools are judged by reading and math results in four standardized tests (the Prairie State Achievement Examination, Illinois Standards Achievement Test, Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English and Illinois Alternative Assessment, the last two of which state officials are trying to replace). Students’ results are merged into a multitude of subgroups, divided by race, economic status, special education needs and more. A certain percentage of each subgroup’s students must pass the tests or the NCLB labels the entire school a failure.

The percentages rises almost every year. In 2011, 85 percent of students needed to meet or exceed state standards for the school to be considered successful. By 2014, the expectation reaches the unattainable 100 percent.

“One hundred percent is our vision,” Hudson said, noting that District 102 was going to take a shot at it.

But both Aptakisic-Tripp and Kildeer-Countryside will have work to do to come close. Between the two districts, only one building — 102’s Meridian Middle School — was judged a failure (its special needs subgroup did not meet AYP for reading), yet neither district passed as a whole.

In Kildeer-Countryside, the hang-up was in the size of individual schools’ subgroup populations. A subgroup must have at least 45 members to be counted, at either the school or district level. In District 96, subgroups that had 45 when all buildings were put together (and did not make AYP) had too few kids at any one building to be counted.

“It’s just frustrating for us,” Louis said. “It’s disheartening.”

Hudson noted that Aptakisic Junior High pulled itself off the “failing” list. In 2010, its special needs subgroup did not meet the 77.5 percent AYP standard, but this year, it surpassed 85 percent.

“The Junior High did a remarkable job,” he said.

At Stevenson High School, special education had been the failing category in 2010 as well.

“Apparently we’re one of eight high schools in the state to make AYP this year. So we’re happy about that,” Stevenson’s Conrey said. “The world of AYP, from year to year, you never know.”

Both Louis and Hudson noted that politicians are trying to rework the NCLB’s standards, to avoid a year when every American school falls short of an unachievable standard.

“It’s probably not going to be in the state that it’s in right now,” Hudson said of NCLB. “It’s an interesting time, that’s for sure.”

“It’s kind of counter-intuitive from what we’re trying to do,” Louis said. “It is hard to imagine that we’ll have 100 percent across the state.”