BHS one of two area schools to pass yearly progress standards

Results from the Annual Yearly Progress Report (AYP) mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act are in, and while Bigfork High School continued its record of consecutive passing marks, the school’s math scores have taken a tumble.

Bigfork Elementary School Principal Jackie Boshka presented the results at last Wednesday’s school board meeting, and explained that while BHS’s reading test scores remain extremely high, test scores for mathematics are below the school’s goal, and only passed federal and state requirements because of a “safe harbor” provision, that gives schools two percentage points of wiggle room.

BHS Assistant Principal Matt Jensen said the federal goal of 84 percent proficiency by the 2010-2011 school year is the school’s next target.

“The big thing now is we’re trying to be as proactive as possible to reach that 84 percent,” he said. “But regardless of what interventions we put in place, all students aren’t going to be at that level.”

School board trustees pointed out that the federal goal is to have 100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014, something Jensen said “experts will tell you is impossible.”

Part of the district’s plan to move toward that goal includes ensuring that every student takes algebra in 8th grade. More immediately, the board members and Boshka, along with middle school principal Wayne Loeffler, agreed that having all students enrolled in algebra class by 9th grade is a short-term goal that needs to be met.

This year 31 of the high school’s 72 freshmen are not in an algebra or above math class.

That statistic hurts Bigfork’s test scores because the criterion-referenced tests (which the AYP is based on) that are administered to 10th graders assume that the student has either already taken or is currently enrolled in a geometry course. Clearly, students who have not yet been exposed to any high school-level geometry are not going to fair well.

“I think we have the programs in place to do that,” Boshka said of getting students in algebra by their freshman year.

Since its inception, one of the most commonly heard complaints about the No Child Left Behind Act is that it encourages teachers to tailor curriculums specifically to the test. That, Jensen said, has not yet become a large concern at Bigfork.

“We want to keep meeting it (federal standards), but we’re not going to put our pride ahead of what’s best for the kids,” he said. “It’s good to get the direction, but we teach kids, we don’t teach subjects.”

Though the AYP report is not issued for science, test scores for the Montana CRT test in that subject area showed a steep decline in proficiency from the 8th grade to 10th grade levels (all CRT tests are administered to 4th, 8th and 10th graders only).

“It’s a big red flag,” said Bigfork High School Trustee Denny Sabo.

Boshka said “vertical meetings” that involve teachers in a subject area from the elementary, middle and high schools were scheduled to help address the problem.

“I don’t know why kids do so well in elementary school (and worse in middle and high school) except maybe we’re not pushing them hard enough,” she said.

Jensen said part of the reason for the low test scores in science could also be that standardized tests in that subject were only implimented a few years ago and that BHS’s science curriculum could be too broad-based for students to test well.

“Math and reading have had a couple of years to align curriculum more toward the criterium test, without that, the curriculum in science has been more broad,” Jensen said.

Bigfork High School is the only high school in the Flathead Valley that has passed the AYP requirements every year since they were instituted in 2001, “a huge deal,” according to Jensen.

Whitefish High School was the only other area high school to pass the regulations this year. Columbia Falls, Flathead, Glacier and Polson high schools all missed the minimum standards. Seventy-one percent of Montana schools passed the test.

Since all federal funding is dependent upon the AYP results, all of Montana schools are affected. Schools that fail to meet the requirements for two or more consecutive years are required to give parents the option of moving their children to another school. Failing districts must also start teacher mentoring programs and spend 10 percent of federal funds on teacher training.

The report uses test scores from students who took the test during the 2007-2008 school year.