Schools

Three Farmington High Schools Fail to Meet AYP, Following Statewide Trend

As Farmington High improves its ranking in the annual assessment, Harrison and North drop.

While the majority of Farmington public schools met targets for annual achievement under federal No Child Left Behind legislation, three Farmington public high schools did not.

, and all failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), according to reports issued by the Michigan Department of Education today. Farmington Central, serving students ages 16-19 in an alternative setting, has been targeted for school improvement.

At Harrison and North, the subgroup of students with disabilities did not meet academic progress targets. When one or more of the subgroups identified by the federal government fails, the school is identified as not meeting AYP.

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The district's success story lies in , which comes off a list of schools targeted for improvement. The school failed to meet AYP in 2008-2009, but hit targets in 2009-2010 and this past school year.

In order to meet AYP, schools must meet improvement targets in reading and math, or reduce the number of students who are not proficient by 10 percent. Statewide, high school students showed significant declines in the percentage of high schools making AYP, going from 81.9% last year to 60% this year.

Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the MDE, suggested the statewide drop is the result of increasing proficiency targets amid growing academic expectations. She said every time the state increases the target by 10 or 12 points, especially in math, there tends to be a group of students on the cusp who, when the scores increase, just don't make it.

She said the math targets, for instance, had not increased for three years in a row, giving some students a chance to start to catch up, then they jumped significantly this past year, which put students behind again.

"We are raising the bar on what they need to know, to also raise AYP simultaneously is very, very difficult," she said.

Ellis said the state is awaiting word on whether the federal government will give Michigan a waiver on meeting proficiency targets in the next 10 years as it works on boosting overall academic performance.

She said that will allow the state to balance yearly progress with the increase in rigor in schools in Michigan are facing as the state adopts Common Core Standards.

"We want to raise the rigor of what students know, rather than lower the bar," she said.

Common Core Standards, essentially means setting specific goals for what students need to know in each subject. For instance, what exactly students should know in each grade/subject to have a clear understanding of it.

This, Ellis said, will better prepare students for college and career paths, make them reading to take the national assessment test, boost ACT scores and give a better understanding of what they are being taught.

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Overall Michigan schools saw a 7.1 percentage point decrease in students making AYP, dropping from 86 percent of schools in 2009-2010 to 79 percent in 2010-2011.

The state also released Michigan Education Yes! report card grades; all Farmington public schools received an "A", with the exception of Harrison and North, which both received "B" grades.

To view a dashboard of detailed information for Farmington Schools, ranging from third grade reading proficiency to the number of eligible students getting free and reduced lunch, visit mischooldata.org

For more information about AYP, visit the state Department of Education website.

This is a developing news story.


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