Blair fails to meet NCLB standards

Because Blair's recent Maryland School Assessment (MSA) scores failed to meet standards under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, Blair is now a school "in need of improvement" and could face school-wide restructuring if scores do not meet rising standards in coming years, according to Maryland State Department of Education law.

The Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) report on last year's MSA scores released on Oct. 20 showed that Blair Hispanic males in Geometry, one of 37 AYP target categories, did not meet the target MSA scores. Not meeting any one of the target categories renders the entire school failing. Blair, now on the NCLB watch list, will only be removed if it meets AYP guidelines in all of the categories this school year.

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students did not meet AYP standards in reading and math, but their scores did not count this year in Blair's overall performance.

If AYP is not met in the 2005-2006 school year, Blair could be forced to carry out state requirements which include replacing school staff, assuming a new curriculum that decreases school-level supervision and extending the school day or year.

Sophomores across the state take annual standardized assessments like the MSA, and under NCLB, the percentage of students that must meet proficiency standards will increase each year. For this year's Maryland AYP requirement, 53.3 percent of students must read at a proficient level, up from last year's goal of 45.5 percent, and 40.7 percent must be proficient in math, up from last year's goal of 27.5 percent.

In the 2013-2014 school year, 100 percent of students must meet the proficiency standards. Beginning this year, the scores of ESOL students who have been in the U.S. for at least nine months will be counted among the scores in the rest of the evaluated groups.

Principal Phillip Gainous expressed much concern regarding Blair's future performance under the strict guidelines of NCLB and hopes to see the act itself revised. "I'm worried in the sense that it makes Blair look bad. It'll cause community concern; staff will feel frustrated because the school's in trouble, so we'll lose good staff," said Gainous. "[NCLB] is a procedure that needs to be fixed."

Gainous went on to say that even Whitman, one of Maryland's top-performing schools, could appear to be failing under NCLB if it did not meet AYP standards in Special Education.

Currently, as a first-year school in need of improvement, Blair is in the process of devising a two-year plan to address academic faults that caused the school not to meet AYP. The plan must address areas like "professional development" and "activities that extend beyond the regular school day/year," according to a memorandum from the Maryland State Department of Education.

After four years of poor performance, schools in Maryland face restructuring and hiring of new teachers as well as becoming charter schools run by the state.
NCLB guidelines are ineffective in many ways, according to Gainous, because a school is not judged on whether or not it raised its scores in the previously failing category; instead, the school as a whole must meet higher standards each year. "I don't think it's fair, but the intent is good," he said.

English Resource Teacher Vickie Adamson also disagrees with the manner in which Blair's performance was evaluated. "It's not that we're a failing school, but the measures we're under make us seem like one," she said. "You can't argue with the goal of NCLB; it's positive, but it's also punitive in nature. It's just looking to catch you."

Assessing students who are newcomers to the U.S. is unreasonable, according to ESOL teacher Brenna Matthews, who has written a thesis paper on NCLB. "The test was made for English speakers, not English learners," said Matthews. "Rigor is good, but sometimes with ESOL students it could backfire."

Matthews also argued that it is inaccurate to test a different group of students each year and use higher standards for the following class because an entirely new group of students is being tested.

Curriculum changes geared towards helping students improve on the test are essential, said Matthews, but not all Blazers are aware that they are being prepared for any sort of assessments. "[Teachers] don't really tell us about it," said freshman Iliya Smithka, who will be taking state assessments next year. "They should probably let us know more if they're going to make us take it."

In the 2002-2003 school year, 525 schools in Maryland did not meet proficient progress targets on assessments, and education officials doubted that they would improve, according to a June article in The Baltimore Sun. The following school year, however, showed a significant amount of improvement due to changes in school programs, said State Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick to the Sun.