Board, Resident Question NCLB Benchmarks

The report on its progress toward No Child Left Behind benchmarks had board members and residents questioning the act’s aims and the district’s plans to improve its trouble areas.

The , though administrators and board members noted the jump in proficiency benchmarks.

“Everybody, when NCLB came out, knew we had to get to 100 percent by 2014 and sort of back loaded the big jumps,” Judy Haas, who is on the education committee, said. “In the early years, it seemed like the percentage was going up annually very slowly, and, as a result of that, come 2011, we’ve got 20 percent, 14 percents jumps in the numbers that we have to reach.

“I think people were hoping that, by the time they got to 2011, this would be gone,” she added. “But—surprise—it wasn’t.”

Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Lisa Antunes noted that, while the federal government adjusted the benchmarks during several years, the 100 percent goal remained constant. During her presentation on the district’s scores, she noted that many districts throughout the state could face problems when achieving the 100 percent proficiency benchmark.

“It’s nice to say 100 percent, but, to be honest, it’s probably not achievable,” Chris Pulsifer said. “It’s just the way the system works out eventually.”

A resident at the meeting also noted that the 100 percent proficiency benchmark is unlikely, but also asked what the district faces if it does not reach the 100 percent mark.

“What happens if we don’t get to 100 percent,” Tim Jordan, of Brokaw Court, said. “Do we lose any kind of funding or do we get kicked of a club or what happens? I can’t believe the federal government believes 100 percent is going to happen with anything. They can’t decide what they’re doing there and they want us to be at 100 percent for something?”

According to Antunes, there are several actions that correspond to a school’s progress toward the assessment benchmarks. The actions include assistance from the state, school choice, requiring districts to set aside a federally-set amount of money for tutoring, restructuring schools that consistently miss marks or district restructuring.

In Hillsborough, school choice is only a concern at the elementary school level, since the district has no other intermediate, middle or high schools, she noted. In addition, money associated with the economic sanctions come from the annual NCLB grants the district receives from the federal government.

Meanwhile, board member Jennifer Haley noted the problems the district’s seeing in its middle school assessments. Her focus included the seventh grade science assessments.

“I’m curious as to what our benchmarking is going to be for grade remediation once we identify what we feel the issues are,” she said.

According to Antunes, District Science Supervisor Kim Feltre and several teachers worked to redesign the science curriculum. The work included eliminating redundant topics while also emphasizing goals to the students. There’s also an emphasis on looking as assessment data and focusing on trouble areas, she noted.

But the school may still see a dip in scores as teachers introduce the new curriculum.

“There may be an implementation dip next year,” Antunes said. “Often, when you introduce a new curriculum, you see an implementation dip in year one as teachers are getting used to it. They’re getting used to the new curriculum, how to deliver it.”

Other board members questioned whether the middle school’s difficulties transfer to the high school level, leading to the shortfalls seen there.

“It seems to me that we’re doing well in the elementary grades,” Marc Rosenberg said. “It’s clear that we have a good elementary program. The fact that we’re not doing as well in the middle school is of concern for two reasons. One, we want to do better in the middle school but I think the middle school problem gets exacerbated in the high school results.

But earlier grade levels shouldn’t be blamed for shortfalls seen in the higher grade levels, Antunes stressed. However, the efforts do start at the earlier levels, and include integrating skills into different subject areas, like including non-fiction reading work in science and social studies classes.

“When you get to the high school, it’s very high-stakes,” Antunes said. “What we need to do is remediate that at early levels but we need to do that cross-curricularly.  .  .Eliminating something because there’s not time to do it is no longer acceptable to us.

“Writing has to be done across the curriculum,” she added. “Reading has to be done across the curriculum, whether it’s done in science, social studies, literacy, whatever it is.”

The state plans to apply for a No Child Left Behind Act waiver, which would allow the state to put aside certain portions of the NCLB requirements in exchange for state-developed education plans, Antunes said.

The waivers would allow districts to consider ways to measure student achievement, including the measures of student growth mentioned in District Superintendent Jorden Schiff’s Building on Excellence report.

“There are a lot of very interesting parts of the waivers,” Schiff said. “.  .  . But the waiver hasn’t been approved yet. We have to see if it meets federal criteria.”