State wants say in deploying help to struggling schools

By Emily Richmond

Sunday, July 27, 2008 | 2 a.m.

With the controversial No Child Left Behind law up for congressional reauthorization, Nevada’s chief education officer knows what would top his wish list of changes. How about letting states decide which failing schools are most in need of assistance?

“If we could have that flexibility, I think we’d be able to do a better job,” said Keith Rheault, state superintendent of public instruction. “We’re spread out so thin right now, I’m not sure schools are getting the full benefit.”

No Child Left Behind requires schools to show adequate yearly progress, often referred to as AYP, on standardized tests. If a school fails for four consecutive years, the Nevada Education Department must deploy a support team to help the school develop a plan for turning things around.

Each team is led by an experienced administrator, often retired, a district administrator, qualified educators who work at other campuses and a parent or guardian of a student at the school. The teams are to visit the schools as often as possible from the start of the academic year through Nov. 1, when the written improvement plan is due. After that, teams must visit campuses at least once a month.

Officials released the results of this year’s testing Thursday, but the state won’t know how many schools will require support teams until the results are finalized at the end of the month. The worst-case scenario is 134 schools, although officials expect the number to be closer to 100.

The school support team leaders are typically paid $10,000, but at Title I schools (those granted extra federal funding because of their percentage of students from low-income households) team leaders are paid $20,000. The other team members are not compensated.

The cost of the teams increased to nearly $1.2 million for the 2007-08 academic year.

To make the best use of those dollars, it’s important that local officials have more say in how they’re spent, Rheault says.

Campuses have appeared on the “needs improvement” list for as many as six years — schools struggling with low student achievement in a variety of areas. But in some cases, schools missed AYP for relatively minor reasons, such as having 94 percent of students show up on test day instead of the required 95 percent. An entire elementary school might fall short because of low scores by as few as three students in a particular classroom.

Do those schools really need visits from an improvement team? Or would Nevada be better off if more focus were placed on schools that are consistently failing?

“It doesn’t make sense for us to go in with a full-blown team if the school actually only has five kids who need assistance,” said Kathy St. Clair, director of the Nevada Education Department’s School Improvement Program. “However, the law doesn’t allow us to take that approach.”

St. Clair and two other employees oversee the teams.

In 2004, two campuses statewide required support teams, and St. Clair’s staff was able to serve both campuses. By 2005, the number of schools requiring teams had jumped to 18, and outside help was necessary. A year later, 60 school support teams were needed.

In Clark County, 76 campuses will require support teams for the 2008-09 academic year, up from 60 last year.

“We really believe that the school support team system ... is helping schools,” St. Clair said. “But we’re also really scared it’s going to collapse under its own weight.”

Of the 18 schools aided by support teams during the 2005-06 academic year, nine have since made adequate progress for at least two consecutive years and are no longer on the “needs improvement” list. The remaining schools have also shown gains, though not enough to exit the list.

That’s been the case for West Prep. Principal Mike Barton took over in 2005, and the beleaguered school essentially started from scratch with a new program and new staff.

For the 2005-06 academic year, 15 percent of the school’s sixth graders were proficient in reading. That jumped to 24 percent the following year. On the latest round of reading tests, 35 percent of West’s sixth graders were proficient.

“We make good progress and do everything right,” Barton said. “And we’re still going to be dinged as a ‘needs improvement’ school for a sixth year.”

Many of the older students at West start out so far below grade level that meeting the statewide expectations is nearly impossible, Barton said.

“Our growth was astronomical,” Barton said. “But we still didn’t get close to the state bench mark.”

The challenge was even greater this year because the bench mark for AYP was raised. For the first time since the law took effect in 2002, more than 50 percent of elementary and middle school students must demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing and math. The bench marks will continue to rise through 2013-14, the deadline for public schools to show that 100 percent of their students are proficient.

Barton said the assistance team assigned to West has been a tremendous help. The team’s co-leaders, retired Clark County School District administrators Marjorie Conners and Sylvia Togano, are regular campus visitors.

“They don’t give these recommendations from their homes or offices,” Barton said. “They do lunch duty, they come to the evening events.”

Conners, who retired in 2003 as an assistant regional superintendent, said she and Togano, along with UNLV professor Jim Crawford, recently submitted to Rheault proposals to improve the system. Among them, a recommendation that the state perform a kind of educational triage and send the teams only to the hardest-hit campuses.

“By minimizing the number of teams that are needed and focusing on the kind of support we give, we would be of greater service to the schools,” Conners said.