The Iowa Department of Education released its Annual Yearly Progress Report Tuesday — which is like its grade card for schools and school districts — and Newton had several schools deemed “in need of assistance,” in either math or reading.
As a whole, the district was considered in need of assistance in math.
Newton wasn’t alone in struggling to meet the 100 percent proficient benchmark required by the No Child Left Behind Act — whose measures IDE uses to develop its annual report — as more than 50 percent of schools in the state are considered SINA.
State officials, such as IDE Director Brad Buck, have spoken out against it saying that NCLB has outlived its usefulness. Locally, Jim Gilbert, associate director for elementary education services for the Newton Community School District, agrees.
“All this No Child Left Behind stuff, it was a good idea at its conception. Now, we are in 2014 where the trajectory targets are at 100 percent,” Gilbert said.
“What they are saying is that all students, in all subgroups, in all schools — 100 percent of those students should be proficient in math, reading and science. That is the difficulty. As you approach that 100 percent, it just becomes more statistically improbable.”
Gilbert explained that this was a difficult thing to accomplish because students develop at different rates and times, and some work better with certain learning styles than others do.
“The analogy would be to say that in 2014 everyone will be able to dunk a basketball, or run a four minute mile or whatever analogy you want to make. The fact is that we got kids coming from different backgrounds, with different learning abilities and some have disabilities and its our job to make sure all those kids meet their potential, and really that’s what we should be measuring,” Gilbert said.
Although results from within the district weren’t ideal in the broad sense, Gilbert said he is proud of how the students fared, and feels that more attention should be to positive notes. He also pointed out in a lot of cases it was the sub-groups that may have caused a building to miss its trajectory.
Last year all four elementary buildings met the math trajectory, but only Thomas Jefferson Elementary School did this year.
Aurora Heights Elementary School is labeled a SINA-2 school this year in both math and reading, however, Gilbert pointed out that the school missed its math trajectory due to the special education and socioeconomic (free and reduced lunch) sub-groups.
Berg Elementary missed its mark overall and in the socioeconomic sub-group, and Woodrow Wilson missed because of the special education sub-group.
“The schools that missed it for example, Woodrow Wilson, Berg, Aurora Heights, they were all right at 80 percent or above proficient,” Gilbert said.
After seven years, Berg Middle School made it off of the SINA list in math. Gilbert partially credits this turn around due to the district’s Everyday Math, a mathematics curriculum the district implemented at the K-6 level several years ago.
“The students they are receiving now (at BMS) have had Everyday Math for three years now, and so they are receiving students who have been exposed to much higher rigor and much higher demands in mathematics,” Gilbert said.
BMS also began using the online math curriculum “digits” last year, and Gilbert believes that system and the way the staff at BMS have implemented it have also led to the positive results.
Just last year the district upgraded to a new reading curriculum called Reading Wonders at the K-6 level. He said while they are seeing success with the Everyday Math program now, it took time and he’s hoping to see similar results with Reading Wonders at students rise through the ranks.
At Newton Senior High School, he said students scored above 80 percent in both the reading and math trajectories, but the socioeconomic sub-group is what caused the building to go on the watch list — meaning it missed trajectory for one year — for reading and SINA list for math.
“When you put this kind of data out, you have to put it into context so that the teachers in the community don’t get down. Our teachers and our students are doing a pretty darn good job. It’s the No Child Left Behind measurement that has outlived its purpose really,” Gilbert said.
“It’s become archaic and it just doesn’t fit anymore. So we can’t let that really hide the fact that we are doing a pretty good job at our public schools here in Newton,” he said.
Contact Senior Staff Writer Ty Rushing at (641) 792-3121 Ext. 6532 or trushing@newtondailynews.com