MANCHESTER — Regional school district students met federal academic yearly progress benchmarks in all areas except for middle school special education mathematics in 2007, according to the annual No Child Left Behind report card released this month.
The district, which has met its overall benchmarks every year since 2001, received a "high" performance rating in overall mathematics on the report card and a "very high" rating in English.
Manchester Essex Schools Superintendent Marcia Adams O'Neil said yesterday that the report, based largely on the results of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests last spring, was encouraging.
"I think this sends a very positive message to parents that the district is performing well," O'Neil said. "English language arts is a particularly strong area that I would call attention to, but we also had strong math performance."
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted by Congress in 2001, a school that fails to make adequate yearly progress in any of its subgroups for two consecutive years is placed on warning status and can be subject to increased state intervention if problems persist.
In 2006, the district made adequate yearly progress in all subgroups, including middle school special education mathematics, so the 2007 numbers do not put the district on the "needs improvement" list. The district has never missed aggregate adequate yearly progress benchmarks, according to the report card.
No Child Left Behind sets a target for 100 percent of students in all schools throughout the country to meet proficiency standards set by their individual states by 2014. The yearly progress reports are based on whether a school is making progress to total proficiency and become tougher to reach each year in the run-up to 2014.
In Massachusetts, adequate yearly progress is measured largely by scores on the MCAS test, with other factors such as attendance factored in.
On Tuesday, School Committee Chairwoman Susan Beckman said she had also been encouraged by the report card.
"We had good news, the district made it," Beckman said. "The School Committee was very pleased."
O'Neil said achieving total proficiency in middle school math has proven to be one of the toughest challenges for all school districts in the state.
She said a number of factors contribute to making grades six through eight difficult, including the fact that students are tested all three years in middle school and the difference in size between most elementary schools and middle schools.
"When you are bringing in a population of students that have worked in very small settings, you go through real model change when you go from elementary to middle school," O'Neil said. "And math is very challenging. There has been a lot of talk about the rigor of the task for children that need modifications and accommodations."
This year the school district implemented a new middle school math program, O'Neil said, and was focusing on teacher training in upper and middle level math.
"The teachers are very comfortable with the new program and excited about the curriculum," O'Neil said. "We are moving in a positive direction, but we still need to pay attention to that subgroup."
Patrick Anderson may be contacted at panderson@gloucestertimes.com
