By Jesse Serwer
While it was reported last week that the district's South Side Middle School appeared on an "accountability list" of schools that fell below New York state standards, the whole picture is far less alarming.
According to the Accountability Status Report for Rockville Centre issued by the State Education Department last Wednesday, the district is considered a "district in good standing." Every district in the state received an accountability report, which is required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
While the rest of the schools in the district met requirements for every testing category- which were compiled from the results of standardized tests offered during the 2003-04 school year-South Side Middle School met the requirements in all areas except for middle-level math and English Language Arts among students with disabilities. As a result, according to the state's report, South Side did not meet its Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in those areas. But, district officials explained, schools are only given a "school requiring academic progress" designation if they do not make an AYP rating in the same grade and subject for two consecutive years.
In other words, there was nothing wrong with South Side Middle School's performance.
"The reason we are on the 'accountability list' Newsday put together has to do with a very small group of special-education kids who last year did not meet the target," said Rockville Centre school Superintendent Dr. William Johnson. "Quite frankly we would not have been on that list if we didn't report five kids who attend special ed programs in our schools who don't live in the district."
Rockville Centre school board member Mark Masin said that while the state accountability reports are useful they do not provide an accurate picture of the school district.
"There are certainly areas of misinterpretation in the report from the state," Masin said. "Not everything is as black and white as it makes things out to be. It looks like there is something going on with our schools, but that is not necessarily the case. If you look at the graduation rates at out high school compared to other districts throughout Long Island and the state, and our Regents diploma rate being 94 percent, when the statewide average is somewhere in the 50s, our kids achieve a great deal."
Rockville Centre's approach to math education also presents an interesting conundrum that is not taken into consideration by No Child Left Behind, Johnson said.
"Our kids finish their Math A requirements, which kids in other schools take in the middle of 10th grade, at the end of eighth grade," Johnson explained. "They are preparing for the eighth grade math requirement in the seventh grade, so when they take New York State's standardized Math 8 test, it is out of sequence, and we don't prepare them for it. Sixty-one percent of our kids passed the Math 8 exam, but 93 percent of the very same group of kids passed the Regents exam in eighth grade. There are problems with the math 8 Exam. It doesn't predict how kids are going to do on the Regents."
The district opted to teach the Math A curriculum, which consists of algebra and the first half of geometry in the seventh and eighth grades "because everybody in the rest of the world teaches algebra in the eighth grade," Johnson said.
"There is substantial research that says it is an appropriate course for eighth grade, and it is evidenced by how well our students perform on the Regents-they can certainly do the work. "
South Side was one of five Nassau County middle schools to fall short of the state's AYP in a particular area. The others were Hempstead's Alverta B. Gary Schultz Middle School, Mineola Middle School, Long Beach Middle School and Roosevelt Middle School. Oceanside High School, like a number of other high schools in typically well-performing districts, also failed to meet AYP requirements for special-education students.
"This school report card shows more students are achieving higher standards and graduating," state education Commissioner Richard Mills said in a press release, "but New York still faces many challenges. We need to do better. The four-year graduation rate for minority students is unacceptably low. Too many young people historically take longer to graduate, or they drop out. We've made progress, but we have to work hard to close the achievement gap."
Said Johnson, "I think the [accountability status reports] are a good thing, but they are not giving schools enough time to respond to the problems. Schools need to be held accountable and there need to be standards, but I don't agree with the disaggregation of data, and breaking it up into subgroups."
Comments on this story? JSwerwer@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 285.
