Area Schools Struggling With Tougher Standards

3 Systems Say Goals Too High for Some

The Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park school divisions did not make the grade this year.

Officials from the three divisions said the new testing standards for English language learners set the bar too high and were among reasons many school systems in Northern Virginia did not make adequate yearly progress (AYP) as required under the No Child Left Behind Act.

The federal government required Virginia schools to give students who are learning English the same grade-level tests as native speakers. The controversial testing was agreed upon when the federal government threatened to withhold millions in funding from area schools.

In Prince William, 37 of 79 schools did not make AYP, compared with 19 last year. Of those, 14 missed one of the 29 categories a school and a division must pass to achieve AYP, said Ray Diroll, supervisor for testing for county schools. Nine of those schools were very close but missed the mark because of English learners, Diroll said.

"We didn't have that many that missed it," he said.

This year 73 percent of students had to pass the English test to meet the state goal; he said most county schools were closer to last year's goal of 69 percent. This year's goal in math was 71 percent, up from 69 percent last year.

Belmont Elementary in Woodbridge is the only one in the county receiving federal Title I funds, for low-income schools, that missed the mark again, requiring it to allow students to transfer elsewhere this year.

Prince William high schools performed especially well, Diroll said, scoring in the 90th percentile in six of 11 major tests. Some of the greatest increases were made by English learners in math and reading, he said.

Similar performances could be found at Osbourn and Manassas Park high schools.

Only three of Manassas's eight schools made AYP this year, primarily because the Hispanic and English learner subgroups didn't score as well as other students, Superintendent Gail Pope said.

Three of the city's elementary schools didn't make AYP. The scores of students learning English dropped from 80 percent to 48 percent this year at Jennie Dean Elementary; from 90 percent to 58 percent at Weems Elementary; and from 85 percent to 68 percent at Haydon Elementary.

Although Metz Middle School improved its performance in the math test this year, it still didn't make the benchmark.

"Our performance in mathematics at grades 6 and 7 is still not there. That was the other issue in all of this," Pope said.

The Manassas school system is implementing a new math program in kindergarten through eighth grade to help students boost their scores, she said.

Students who failed the tests will receive individual assistance and have an education plan that their teachers will follow throughout the year, Pope said. "That is the beauty of a small school system," she said.

In Manassas Park, which has four schools, only the middle school didn't make required progress this year, despite a 50 percentage point increase in math scores in seventh grade. Overall, the three school systems made big gains in middle school math scores over last year, officials said.

That progress wasn't enough at Manassas Park Middle, where many math and reading scores were below the state standard. "We have a steep hill in Manassas Park," said Bruce McDade, associate superintendent of curriculum and technology at Manassas Park schools.

Schools probably will face more difficulties as the annual standard rises, as do the number of students who are minorities and English learners and who have special needs. "We know we have challenging times ahead," McDade said.