Failing schools underreported

Many states and local school districts are underreporting the number of schools failing to teach children to read and do mathematics at their grade level as required by the 2-year-old No Child Left Behind Act, fearful of ultimately losing control over poorly performing schools.

Education Secretary Rod Paige says the problem of districts and states “playing games” to avoid accountability for poor teaching and learning in their schools is not yet “under control” and is anticipated with “any big change like this.”

“In fact, there’s a level of expectation that there will be those that will push the envelope and try to game the system,” Mr. Paige said in an interview with The Washington Times, two years after President Bush’s education-reform law took effect.

So far, more than half the states have reported a combined 2,513 fewer low-performing schools than they did last year, according to data from initial state reports issued Friday by Education Week. Some states did report a rise in the number of low-performing schools over last year, and some have yet to report.

“The idea is not to be on any list that a school needs improvement,” said Rob Weil, director of education issues for the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union.

But Mr. Weil said because standards are stiffening, the number of low-performing schools should be going up, not down, in the second year of the 12-year duration of the law.

“The number of schools on the list will go up significantly because, under the law, the bar schools have to reach now will go up,” Mr. Weil said. “So the schools that were on the margin will have to reach that bar, or they will be added to the list.”

States thus far have listed 5,200 schools as low-performing, from among the 91,380 public elementary and secondary schools nationally — 40 percent fewer than the department’s 2002 listing of 8,652 schools needing improvement.

At least five states with 1,684 schools needing improvement in 2002 had not submitted a tally for the Education Department’s 2003 report, which has been held up by furious school appeal activity at the state level. This is the first year that low-performing schools are to be named and listed under the act.

Apart from being stigmatized as failures, schools receiving federal aid that don’t have a majority of fourth- and eighth-graders testing at a “proficient” level for math and reading are added to the “needing improvement” list and ultimately face a number of sanctions that could lead to takeover or closure by the state after the fifth year.

Once on the list without making “adequate yearly progress” for two years in a row, students must be offered a choice of other public schools to attend. Schools also must offer supplemental services, including private tutoring to students, for which the law provides additional federal funds.

The act requires schools to bring all students up to the “proficient” level on state tests by the 2012-14 school year.

Because of thousands of still-pending appeals by schools to stay off the list, the department has been unable to complete its long-overdue 2003 report to Congress, said Ron Tomalis, acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education.

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