DPS reports seventh year of increased student achievement

August 5, 2004 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Dr. Carl Harris, Associate Superintendent Instructional Services, 560-3716 DPS reports seventh year of increased student achievement DURHAM—Student achievement has increased overall for the seventh straight year during the 2003-04 school year in Durham Public Schools. In addition, ABCs of Accountability results released today indicate that Eastway Elementary School has been named one of the 25 Most Improved K-8 schools in the state of North Carolina. And six schools were deemed Honor Schools of Excellence, under the state’s new designation for those schools that met both Schools of Excellence requirements and Adequate Yearly Progress, under the federal No Child Left Behind guidelines. Twenty-nine of 41 schools reached their highest overall scores since composite scores were first mandated by the State of North Carolina eight years ago. This includes all four schools previously deemed “High Priority” schools. ? A record 19 of 27 elementary schools have reached or surpassed the 80-percent proficiency threshold, eight of which have reached or surpassed the 90-percent mark. No elementary or middle school had reached these milestones eight years ago. ? A record five of nine middle schools have surpassed the 80-percent proficiency mark. ? Only eight of 36 schools reported slight decreases, and of those only two reported decreases of more than two percentage points. Five of these eight reported their second highest composite scores ever. ? The four schools deemed High Priority schools – Eastway, Lakewood, Pearson, and Watts – have all reported their highest composite scores ever. In addition, Durham Public Schools met 92.2 percent of its total goals for making Adequate Yearly Progress as part of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Durham Public Schools is required to strive for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which is based on students’ performance on North Carolina end-of-year tests. For a school to meet AYP, subgroups of students must meet AYP standards. More diverse schools have a tougher time meeting AYP standards because they have more subgroups. For the 2003-04 school year, DPS had a total of 784 AYP goals, of which the school system achieved 723 goals, for an overall percentage of 92.2 percent. This is an increase of nearly five percentage points over last year’s results, when DPS met 87.3 percent of its total goals. Despite rising percentages of students performing at or above grade level for the 2003-04 school year in Durham Public Schools, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s annual ABCs of Accountability status designations nonetheless show that some schools fell short of the state’s expectations. According to the report: ? There are now six Schools of Excellence in Durham Public Schools, compared with seven last year. All six were named Honor Schools of Excellence under the state’s new designation, which indicates that they reported at least 90 percent of students achieving at or above grade level, and met all Adequate Yearly Progress requirements under No Child Left Behind. They are Hillandale, Little River, Mangum, Morehead Montessori, Pearsontown and Southwest Elementary Schools. ? There were 11 Schools of Distinction, those that are reporting from 80 through 89 percent of students proficient, the same number as last year. ? There were eight Schools of Progress, or those that made expected growth with a performance composite of between 60 and 80 percent proficiency, compared with 19 last year. ? All high schools met expected growth, with three of them making high growth. Two schools – Eastway and Lakewood Elementary Schools – were named Schools of Distinction for the first time since reporting began in the 1996-97 school year. Eastway has also been named one of the 25 Most Improved K-8 Schools in the state of North Carolina. Eastway had been low performing three times over the last eight years (fewer than 50 percent proficient), most recently in the 1999-2000 school year. This is also an indication of the progress being made in the system’s Title I High Priority schools. Both Eastway and Lakewood are High Priority schools. For the third consecutive year since the ABCs’ inception, there were no “Low-Performing” schools in the Durham Public Schools system. “We are pleased that Durham Public Schools students continue to show increases in their achievement levels, and we must accelerate our progress toward our dual goals of at least 95 percent of third-graders reading at or above grade level and closing the Achievement Gap, while continuing to challenge our highest-achieving students,” said Superintendent Ann T. Denlinger. “We will continue to look at ways to ensure that all students are reaching their highest potential possible.” The ABCs ratings are based on end-of-grade and end-of-course test scores. Those scores are applied to a formula that ultimately indicates relative achievement levels over the course of the year, taking a number of student performance factors into account. A school that makes expected growth/gain has shown growth that would be reasonably expected over one year’s time, based on previous performance. A high growth/gain school shows growth that is at least 10 percent higher than expected for elementary and middle schools, and 5 percent higher than expected for high schools. ### Attachment: The ABCs of Public Education 2003-04 Results