By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

Local school officials now know how their schools fared under the No Child Left Behind act, which carries increasingly harsh penalties for schools repeatedly dubbed “in need of improvement.”

None of the public schools or districts within The Hooksett Banner’s coverage area were added new this year to the federal act’s “in need of improvement” list, though several local education officials said teachers and administrators are feeling the pinch from the controversial law, which took effect in 2002.

New Hampshire’s schools were judged by the New Hampshire Education and Improvement Assessment Program test, administered to 10th-graders, and the new New England Common Assessment Program test, which was given for the first time to the state’s third- through eighth-graders.

Schools or districts failing to make “adequate yearly progress” in consecutive years on the standardized tests, which cover reading and mathematics, are labeled under the federal law as “in need of improvement.”

If such schools or districts fail to make adequate yearly progress in subsequent years, they can face increasingly harsh sanctions ­ up to losing funding and the potential overhaul of school and district staff.

A challenge facing many educators is that specific subgroups of students, including those with educational disabilities and those who are economically disadvantaged, each must make adequate yearly progress.

The goal of No Child Left Behind is to have every student in the nation at a proficient or better level in reading and mathematics by 2013.

SAU 15:
Hooksett, Auburn, Candia

Hooksett is the only one of the six districts within The Hooksett Banner’s coverage area on the “in need of improvement” list, after multiple years of sub-par math scores.

District officials formed a state-approved improvement plan, and this year the district made adequate yearly progress. A second consecutive year of such progress, and the district would shed the “in need of improvement” label.

SAU 15 Assistant Superintendent Gail Kushner said she’s pleased with the results in Hooksett, but warned that this year’s data could be deceiving since this is the first year of the new standardized test for elementary and middle school students.

Kushner described the state’s comparison of last year’s data to this year’s as “comparing apples to oranges.”

“Do you take the results seriously? ­ Yes,” she said. “But I think they’re going to be more accurate next year.”

The Hooksett School Board recently adopted a new elementary math curriculum, Everyday Math, and a math task force has been working to boost the district’s math performance.

Kushner said Hooksett’s students seem to be showing improvement in math on the Northwest Evaluation Association testing, which many New Hampshire districts use to track individual student performance.

As to Hooksett’s overall improvement plan for math, Kushner said, “I think we’re starting to see some positive results.”

Math scores from the Henry Moore School’s students with educational disabilities prevented the Candia school from making adequate yearly progress.

Kushner said administrators already did a “mini math review” at Moore earlier in the school year, and said “teachers are going to be making some adjustments” as a result.

Since it’s the first year Moore students have missed the math mark, the school doesn’t yet carry the “in need of improvement” label.

On the whole, Auburn Village School students made the necessary progress in both reading and math.

SAU 53: Allenstown, Pembroke, Epsom
SAU 53 Superintendent Thomas Haley echoed some of Kushner’s reservations.

“The bottom line is: This is a new test,” he said. “We’d like to think some of the things we’ve done have been effective, but it’s difficult to know year to year.”

Haley also said labels such as “in need of improvement,” which often stem from the performances of a small group of students as measured on one day, can cause a “perception problem.”

He suggested the annual test measured under No Child Left Behind isn’t necessarily an accurate measure of a school’s or district’s success.

“By federal law, these are highlighted by more than other assessments that may be just as valid,” said Haley. “Even when we do well, we try to moderate our enthusiasm.”

As a district, Allenstown failed to make adequate yearly progress in reading, and the educational disability subgroup missed the mark in math.

Allenstown elementary students made the necessary progress, though economically disadvantaged students failed to meet the requirement at the Armand R. Dupont School.

Allenstown Elementary School Principal Theresa Kenny said just because her school’s students made adequate yearly progress this year, “we certainly don’t see it as an opportunity to sit back and relax.”

Kenny said she worries about the process of using annual test ostensibly to measure the local quality of education.

“I’m not sure I have the answer of how best to do it,” she said. “But to take one test and measure a whole school or district is just not fair.”

Kenny said the standardized test makes many young students nervous, and said some students may struggle because “each one learns in a different way.”

“I don’t want to test kids to death because I don’t think it makes them smarter,” said Kenny.

But, she said, “That’s the way it is, and we have to jump through the hoops to make sure we don’t lose funding.”

Results were positive in Pembroke, as the district made progress as a whole, and as Hill and Three Rivers students met all the expectations of adequate yearly progress.

Three Rivers School is a year closer to shedding the “in need of improvement label,” which accompanied sub-par scores in both reading and math in previous years.

TRS Principal Deborah Bulkley stressed, however, that adequate yearly progress is “not a competition.”

“I feel great compassion for schools not making (adequate yearly progress),” said Bulkley. “My frustration comes because everyone in education is doing all they can to try and meet the expectations.”

Bulkley also questioned the value of the annual standardized test as an assessment tool, as students take it early in the school year, and its results aren’t released until school is winding down.

“To be fair to the federal regulations,” said Bulkley, “I do think the teaching (here) has gotten much more focused.”

Epsom students met the requirements in both reading and math, despite the district working with several default budgets and outdated facilities in recent years.