Parents sometimes are left scratching their heads over the state and federal programs, but the governor says both programs offer value.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published August 29, 2004
After striving for several years to meet the state's accountability system, schools were assigned an additional taskmaster in 2002: the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Approved by Congress in 2001, the federal law sets strict performance targets not only for schools, but also for specific groups of students within schools. Those groups include minorities, low-income students, students with limited English skills and students with disabilities.
If one group at a school fails, the entire school fails. In Florida, a group can be as small as 30 students.
Schools with a high percentage of poor families, also known as Title 1 schools, face sanctions if they don't make "adequate yearly progress" under the No Child Left Behind Act. Those that fail to meet the standard two years in a row must offer their students transfers to public schools in the district that made adequate yearly progress.
In Pinellas, "controlled choice" trumps the federal law. That means students from failing schools can seek transfers only to other schools that passed in their attendance area and if the transfer wouldn't crowd the school or upset the racial balance.
Schools that fail to measure up three years in a row, including those in Pinellas, must provide tutors.
Those that fail to meet the standard four years in a row could undergo major staff or curriculum changes. After five years, schools could be taken over by the state or converted to charter schools.
Both state and federal standards are based on FCAT scores. But because the state's school accountability system looks at the school as a whole and the federal accountability system looks at subgroups of students, it's possible for a school to score an A on the FCAT and still not make adequate yearly progress. Conversely, a school could earn a B or C on the FCAT and achieve adequate yearly progress under the federal standard.
In Pinellas County, for example, nearly half of the schools earned A's on the FCAT in 2004, but nearly 80 percent failed to make adequate yearly progress under NCLB. Across the state, 1,200 schools earned A's in 2004, but less than half made adequate yearly progress. Meanwhile, 32 schools that earned C's did make adequate yearly progress.
Gov. Jeb Bush maintains that the state and federal programs are complementary, not competitive.
"Both plans share a common goal, to ensure every child gets a quality education," he wrote in a letter to the St. Petersburg Times in June. "Florida's A+
Plan measures overall performance, NCLB identifies specific areas for improvement. Reviewed together, as they are in our new school report cards, the school grades and the federal assessment ensure we're targeting the needs of every child."
But critics disagree. A group called Communities for Quality Education has formed and is running television ads opposing the federal legislation. Many parents remain baffled that their child's school can be praised by the state - and in some cases receive A+
money in excess of $50,000 - and still be deemed in need of improvement by the federal government.
Schools have little choice but to brainstorm new ways to meet the standards in an effort to satisfy both the state and federal government when test time comes around again.
If you are a parent trying to make sense of what the state school grade and the federal No Child Left Behind rules say about a school's quality, it is best to look deeper into the data and see why a school fared the way it did on both measures.
