Two Area Schools On ‘Achieving’ List

FARMINGTON — Two schools in western Washington County — Lincoln Middle School and Bob Folsom Elementary School in Farmington — have been designated as “Achieving” schools for their 2013 state Benchmark scores, according to an accountability report issued last week by the Arkansas Department of Education.

The other schools in the area were labeled as “Needs Improvement.” These include the primary, intermediate, middle school and high school in Prairie Grove, Lincoln elementary and Lincoln New Tech High School, and Williams Elementary, Ledbetter Intermediate, Lynch Middle School and the high school in Farmington.

Tom W. Kimbrell, commissioner with the education department, released the status of all schools in Arkansas during a Nov. 5 news conference in Little Rock. Kimbrell said 137 public schools showed significant improvement on test scores to be designated as achieving schools for 2013-14. The majority of the schools in the state, 793

schools, were placed in the needs improvement category.

A designation was based on whether schools met their prescribed targets on the state Benchmark tests, End-of Course exams and high school graduation rates. Schools have targets for all students and then targets for subgroups, which include economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities.

In the news conference, Kimbrell said schools on the “Needs Improvement” list are not failing schools.

“These are not schools that are failing our children,” Kimbrell said. “They are schools typically that have a high percentage of proficient and advanced students but have difficult targets (to meet).”

He said that as schools have more students scoring proficient and advanced on state tests, then the schools run into what he calls “the ceiling effect.”

These schools have a smaller percentage of students who need to improve on their tests and it is more difficult to get the students above that target percentage, Kimbrell said.

“That’s why we are beginning to see a large number of schools on needs improvement,” he added.

To be designated as an achieving school, the school had to meet performance or growth on test scores in math and literacy.

Folsom Elementary in Farmington met its performance target on its third grade Benchmark Exams for math and literacy, said Terri Strope, assistant superinten- dent.

Strope said the other schools in Farmington missed their state required goals by 2- 4 percentage points.

“In the majority of cases in our district, we’re in a situation where we are achieving at high levels,” Strope said. “To have continued growth at higher levels is harder to do.”

Another factor affecting test scores, Strope said, is that schools in the state are using Common Core standards for teaching but are testing on the Arkansas Frameworks standards using Benchmark exams.

“We’re not testing the same thing we’re teaching but we’re doing what the law says to do,” Strope said.

Missy Hixson, Prairie Grove assistant superintendent, said Prairie Grove schools missed their targets by decimals.

“In some of these, we only needed one student to score proficient,” Hixson said. “It’s disheartening.”

The district’s 2013 scores were all above the state average and some of the highest in northwest Arkansas.

“It’s disappointing to the staff to be placed on needs improvement status when the schools’ test scores are in the 80th and 90th percentile,” Hixson said.

Lincoln Elementary and the high school did not meet their target goals for their math scores, said Mary Ann Spears, superintendent.

“We were close in some grade levels and some not so close,” Spears said Friday.

Spears said the district continues to work on ways to help its students, including small groups and tutoring before school and after school.