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The 937 public schools identified as not making adequate yearly progress out of the 1,920 for which designations were available reflects a sharp rise over last year. In 2007, there were 729 schools that fell short, forcing some to offer free tutoring or take other corrective steps.
It’s a seeming contradiction for a state that tries mightily to live up to the fictional Lake Wobegon: “Where all the children are above average.”
State Education Commissioner Alice Seagren attributed the bigger list to standards that grow tougher each year. She defended it as vital for accountability.
“This has kind of changed the dynamic of how we’re educating our children and expecting all of our kids to have a strong proficiency, particularly in math and language arts,” she said.
But the list includes all kinds of schools rural, urban and suburban. That fanned criticism that expectations are unrealistic and bound to put all schools below the bar at some point.
“It’s no surprise given that the tests are a moving target that change from year to year, providing no reliable baseline for performance,” said Democratic Rep. Mindy Greiling, who heads a state House education committee. “Minnesotans know that even though our schools face serious challenges, the majority of them are not failing.”
Under the 2002 federal law, schools must demonstrate continual gains among students in reading and math, toward a goal of having all children at grade-level proficiency by 2014. The law requires yearly testing beginning in third grade and extending into high school.
Each state sets its academic standards, writes its tests and determines its passing rate. That makes fair comparisons among states difficult.
Schools are graded on the overall school performance and by smaller categories of students, such as race or children with learning disabilities. There are 38 possible ways to attract the underperformer label, including attendance and graduation rates.
This year, two-thirds made the list for falling short in one or two areas, with 426 missing a single benchmark.
The tripwire in Cloquet, where three schools made the list, was low test scores among special-needs students.
Superintendent Ken Scarbrough said he values the information gleaned from the increased level of testing under No Child Left Behind. However, he is bothered by the resulting labels and the notion that all children can make straight-line progress toward what he sees as a “mythical standard.”
“I don’t think our lawmakers have a real grasp of reality when it comes to setting goals and labeling our schools,” he said, adding, “Special education by its very definition is going to present different challenges. We don’t feel special education students should be held to the same standard as the other subgroups.”
One of the Cloquet schools receives federal Title I dollars to serve children from low-income families, so the district must now direct 10 percent of that money to staff training. Scarbrough said that money will be diverted from instructional purposes.
Minnesota has 197 Title I schools required to take some corrective step from arranging for transfers to better-performing schools to staff restructuring. The consequences grow worse the longer a school is on the list. Getting off requires two years of sufficient gains across the board.
In the 2,000-student Kasson-Mantorville district, all four schools have made adequate progress since the classification ritual began in 2003.
Superintendent Peter Grant said it’s part luck and part preparation. Beginning two months before students take the spring tests, their teachers carve out 10 to 15 minutes of each day to go over practice questions. Grant said the routine gets children in the testing mindset and gives teachers a better sense of subject areas that need more attention.
Avoiding the list has been a point of pride in the district, but Grant said staff are careful not to gloat.
“You just can’t put your chest out too far because it’ll get deflated really quickly the next year,” Grant said. “We’ll never be 100 percent proficient it’s impossible. NASA isn’t 100 percent proficient, either.”
Since 2005, the number of schools landing in undesirable territory has almost quadrupled. Seagren wouldn’t discuss the probability that Minnesota will have more schools in trouble next year than it has in the clear.
“We can’t think about what if.’ We need to think about how we continue to come alongside of our kids,” she said. The commissioner is promoting teacher training academies, principal institutes and regional school improvement centers that her Education Department hopes will turn the tide.
But others, including Charlie Kyte of the Minnesota School Administrators Association, predict the list will grow to 1,100 schools by next summer. He fears people won’t take time to dig beneath the label and will lose confidence in public schools.
“This is doing very, very significant psychological damage both to the mindset of Minnesotans about their schools and secondly to the mindset of the educators inside the schools who are increasingly frustrated,” Kyte said.
“They are trying harder and doing everything they can. In spite of it, they just know inevitably they’ll be on this list.”
