Welcome back to Blount County for a new school year. On August 9, at teacher institute, I gave our AYP accountability data for the 2009-10 school year. I wanted to share those comments here as well.
As the deadline of 2014 draws near, the requirement for perfection gets closer. Every year, the bar gets higher and higher for all students, and the stress for all of us, teachers and administrators, gets greater and greater.
Every state in America is required to have 100% compliance with NCLB, the law of the land, as it relates to accountability. In my opinion, no state will be able to meet that requirement because there is no leeway in the requirement for less than 100% of our students to meet this challenge. "It's an all or none proposition."
As you know, under NCLB, the percentage of students required to meet the "proficient standard" continues to increase annually. In fact, 2010 is the first year that annual measurable objectives have increased in every grade for both reading and mathematics and will continue to increase each year by 4 percentage points or more. The national target, determined by NCLB, is for 100% of the students in America to be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. We know this is unrealistic if not impossible.
Under the NCLB law, schools must meet 100% of their respective annual goals in all student groups to be identified as having achieved AYP. As a result, missing just one goal will prevent a school from making AYP. Again, this is an all or none proposition.
Blount County was one of 51 school systems that did not make AYP. We had 4 schools that failed to achieve 100% of their goals. On Tuesday, the Birmingham News reported that we had 73% of our schools make AYP. What the News did not say was that the Blount County School System made 97% of its goals, reaching a total of 226 out of 233 targeted objectives.
As we begin this new school year, I want our teachers to know that I am very proud of them for their dedication and hard work. Our graduation rate continues to climb, and our reading and math scores remain on a steady incline. Based simply on AYP, it would be easy to get discouraged, but that would be a huge mistake. We need to remain positive, focusing on the good things we have accomplished and commit ourselves to raising the achievement level of our students even more. At the same time, we will make no excuses; we'll just commit to work harder and smarter, using everything at our disposal to better serve our students. Remember, when you cut through all the rhetoric, our efforts have to be about what is best for the children we serve. We must address the areas where we came up short to avoid school improvement status next year--and because it's the right thing to do for our students.
Again, congratulations on a good job!
