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ROANE SCHOOL REMOVED FROM POOR PERFORMANCE LIST - Two Clay Schools Show Improvement, Failing Schools Getting "Awards" |
| (10/28/2003) |
| Roane County High School has been removed from the "endangered" list, required
by No Child Left Behind. Two Clay County elementary schools, Ivydale Elementary and H.E. White Elementary, have also been taken off the list. The state Department of Education has removed 31 schools from a list of those that did not meet federal No Child Left Behind standards last year. The state department says a total of 433 of the state's 728 schools are now making "adequate yearly progress," as mandated by No Child Left Behind. Another 295 did not, and of those, 33 did not for two years. The federal law requires states to set clear and high standards for what students in each grade should know, to measure student performance and to produce annual state and school district report cards reflecting progress. Students of failing schools that don't meet state academic standards can transfer to another public school at no cost to parents. Meanwhile, the state Department of Education has a new initiative to find something to reward failing schools. About every school will get an "award" plaque. "It's nice to know that not only have we dumbed down the curriculum for children in the classroom, but now the state Department of Education finds it necessary to dumb down the whole system," said Wanda Carney, vice president of a Kanawha County school reform group called Workers Against School Tax Excess. Some principals and teachers who have received plaques have used the "improvement plaques" to tout their schools as "award-winning." State officials handed out more than 60 awards to Kanawha County schools, many labeled "seriously impaired." About 84 percent of the state's 728 public schools will receive awards as part of a Department of Education "recognition tour" designed to boost morale. This comes after 45 percent of schools failed to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards. The plaques say the failing schools are recognized for "high achievement" and "notable improvement." Critics say the money spent on the tour and the "lemonade out of a lemon" plaques should have been pumped into struggling schools.
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