Newspaper headlines reported that districts and schools felt short of meeting the federal NCLB goals.
None of the 85 school districts in South Carolina  made Adequate Yearly Progress(AYP)  under the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.  More schools than ever failed to meet the achievement targets.  What is going on?  The reality is that many of these failing ratings do not truly reflect the quality of the school but instead the standards of NCLB.   These standards are unrealistic for some of the sub-groups tested.  I am going to try to explain some of the issues involved.
The NCLB Act which passed six and a half years ago requires that each public school be rated annually as to whether it is making “adequate yearly progress.”  The end goal is to have every child in American perform at the proficient or advanced level by 2014.  In concept, NCLB is a good law.  However, this federal legislation needs major revision in that it gives each school only a Pass or a Fail rating regardless of the number of students, the number of sub-groups, the academic challenges, diversity, or level of poverty in that school.  
In SC public high schools, the AYP rating is based on the performance of all second year high school students on the state exit exam.  Students on this test score at levels 1-4 with 2 being the minimum passing score required for graduation. These scores reflect below basic, basic, proficient or advanced work.  Although a 2 is a passing score, students must score a 3 or 4 to be considered working at the proficient or advanced level which is the federal goal.
Each school’s AYP is reported as “Met” or “No”.  In order to get a “Met” which is the desired score, all subgroups must perform at the state target level for performance in English Language Arts and mathematics.  For 2008, the state high school target for mathematics is at least 50 percent of all students in each sub-group must perform at the proficient or advanced level.  In English Language Arts, 52.3 percent of all students must score at Proficient or Advanced for that sub-group to meet the state standard.  In addition, there are several other complicated formulas which can be used to determine if the school gets a “Met” for a particular sub-group.  Schools must also meet the statewide target objective for attendance or graduation rate for the “All Students” group in order to achieve AYP.
In addition to reporting the performance for “All Students” in the testing group, the scores are also reported separately for the following subgroups which may occur in the school:  racial/ ethnic groups, disabled students, migrant students, students with limited English proficiency, and students who are on subsidized meals. For each sub-group there is a score/rating of performance of the group and the participation of that sub-group.  In other words, did that sub-group meet the state performance objective and did the school test all the students in that sub-group as required by law?
In order to be a sub-group which impacts the school’s rating, the sub-group must have at least 40 students who are tested. The only exception to that rule involves students who are disabled. In order for that sub-group to impact the school rating, the group must have at least 50 students tested.
The number of sub-groups varies from high school to high school across the state depending on the size and make-up of the student body.  School No. 1 may have little racial diversity, be very affluent and have only 30 children who have special needs.  In that case, it will be rated based solely on “all students tested” and the “white” sub-groups.  
School No. 2 may have a very diverse student body which includes more than 40 children in five different sub-groups based on race, 52 children who are special needs, 41 children who are migrants, 40 children who are on subsidized meals and 60 kids who have limited English proficiency.  In School No. 2, every one of these sub-groups must meet the state standard of performance in order for the school to get the “Met” AYP rating.  If a child in school No.2 is Hispanic, migrant, on subsidized meals, speaks English as a second language and has special needs, then this child’s score impacts all these different subgroups.
Wando’s 2008 AYP results indicate we met 90.5 percent of all targets. Although we met 19 of 21 objectives, the current system indicates failure to make AYP.  Our students met and greatly exceeded the state performance standards as a whole school group and in many of our sub-groups.
Our disabled students are the only sub-group which failed to meet the state targets in math and English Language Arts.  Our special needs population includes many students who are college bound and who are capable of working at high levels.  However, we also serve some children who have major disabilities.   In my personal opinion, requiring a child who is significantly mentally disabled and who is not working toward a high school diploma to take the state exit exam is ridiculous.  However, that is the current law.  For the record, our 2007 AYP results showed that our disabled sub-group did meet the state performance standard in English Language Arts.  However, each year we  are testing a different group of children so results naturally vary from year to year.
The federal NCLB law is to be considered for reauthorization this year.  Unless it changes, the AYP targets for high school achievement for each sub-group jump 20 percentage points for next year. This year the elementary and middle school targets jumped by more than 50 percent which helps explains the failure of so many of those schools to make AYP.