By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007; T01

Bladensburg Elementary School Principal Rhonda Gray Pitts went to the first day of school in Prince George's County dressed as a clown.

Pitts was honoring a promise demanded by her students the year before: If they made adequate yearly progress -- the measure of improvement in test scores required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- she would come in a clown suit.

They did, and she did. And so Bladensburg, a struggling school that had been targeted for improvement for seven years, finally exited the watch list after two years of solid academic gains. After the first day of school, Pitts and her staff celebrated with lunch and apple cider, she said in an interview.

Bladensburg was not the only school to celebrate; 10 other elementary schools in Prince George's -- Concord, Cool Spring, District Heights, Glassmanor, Kenmoor, Longfields, Matthew Henson, Morningside, Overlook and Riverdale -- exited school improvement status, the school system announced last week. Seventeen other schools made adequate yearly progress and are in position to escape school improvement status if they show further gains in the coming year.

The 11 schools that left school improvement status were more than double that of the previous year. Meanwhile, four schools -- Carmody Hills Elementary, Ridgecrest Elementary, William W. Hall Elementary and Isaac J. Gourdine Middle -- entered school improvement status for the first time; 14 had done so the previous year.

Overall, the situation remains serious in Prince George's County. There are 56 elementary and middle schools in school improvement status, down from 63 a year ago but still a relatively high percentage of the 173 elementary and middle schools in the county. High school performance results will be announced next week.

Superintendent John E. Deasy hailed this year's numbers as a sign of solid progress, particularly compared with the rest of the state, where the number of schools in improvement status rose from 167 to 176.

"That would actually be a good headline: You guys are bucking the trend," Deasy said of his school system.

He said the success had been fueled by increases in participation in testing, better performance on state tests and targeted efforts to help subgroups of students, such as those learning English, who have had trouble with the test. Another program in "algebraic thinking" helped scores in math.

"I can't really quantify this, but I think a part of it is giving people the confidence they can do this," Deasy said.

At the ground level, Pitts said, "a big part of it was our ability to use data to drive instruction so that we could see where the kids were weakest and adjust instruction to meet their needs."

Special education students spent more time in the classroom and were then pulled into smaller groups to ensure they were understanding the lessons. Federal Title I funding, given to schools based on the number of students from low-income families, helped pay for extra tutoring and mentoring, and volunteers from Verizon tutored some students on weekends.

After that, there was nothing for students to do but their best on the test, Pitts said.

Her next goal?

"Hopefully to keep the trend going," she said. "We're having difficulty getting to that advanced level of achievement, so I'm trying to see if there's something we can do to get more students to the advanced level. . . . I know that that takes time."