North Dakota schools do well in progress report

Bismarck Tribune

By KAYLA COGDILL

There are 17 school districts in North Dakota that have been identified for program improvement according to the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, which released the statewide adequate yearly progress results for all public schools on Wednesday. This is the third consecutive year of the report and Bismarck and Mandan school districts have dodged the list, but failed to make adequate progress in the students with disabilities category.

The Bismarck and Mandan school districts have shown steady progress in making students proficient in reading and math. However, in Bismarck, Horizon, Wachter, and Simile middle schools, Pioneer Elementary School, and Mandan Junior High failed to meet the set goals for children with disabilities in reading or math.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to have one accountability system for all public schools. To determine a school's annual status, the DPI applies a set of rules in order to compare a school's performance rates against the state's established performance goals. Based on student performance data, DPI reports the status of 486 schools for the 2004-05 and compares these results to the 2002-03 and 2003-04 school years.

Last year, the high schools in Bismarck and Mandan failed in the children with disabilities category. This year the high schools have passed, but the middle schools have failed.

When asked what was done differently in the high school to meet their goal, Mandan Superintendent Kent Hjelmstad, said Mandan School District is constantly updating its methods to teach and test students with disabilities, but statistically report can't keep comparing moving targets.

Each year students in fourth-, eighth- and 11th-grade are tested, however the test results don't compare how that particular group of students did because they have moved on to the next grade level.

To improve the Bismarck high school scores, Bismarck Superintendent Paul Johnson said, every student with an individual education plan that outlined accommodations needed to take tests received those accommodations. Examples are having a test read to a student, providing literature in braile or using a calculator. Students that had progressive disabilities and couldn't take the paper and pencil test were allowed to take an alternative assessment test.

Johnson said, meeting the requirements at the high school level was very labor intensive and lots of time was needed from teachers, their assistants and administration. The middle schools in Bismarck will have to do the same things the high schools did to meet their goals next year, he said.

Because the schools in the Bismarck and Mandan school districts only failed in the category involving students with disabilities, DPIused a proxy to calculate their over all score. Fifteen percent was added to the school's proficiency rate, and if that new number met or exceed the state's achievement standards, the school met adequate yearly progress.

In 1975 the Individual with Disabilities Education Act kept children with disabilities from being shut out of schools or from being denied appropriate services.

However the Department of Educations website says that many children with disabilities are excluded from the curriculum and assessments used with their nondisabled classmates, limiting their possibilities of performing to higher standards or performance.

Hjelmstad disagrees and said there is no need for the federal NCLB act to impose high standards on children with disabilities. "Asking somebody with a sever disability to improve is ludacris," he said.

The IDEA requires an independent education plan to set the standards for improvement and the federal government needs to respect that act, he said.

Greg Gallagher, standards and achievement director at DPI, said the disabilities category of the report is an area that is fairly new, and work has to be done in it. However he believes that students with disabilities need to be challenged and can benefit from becoming more proficient in reading and math.

"We're seeing a very steady movement forward towards higher levels of proficiency in the state," Gallagher said. "A movement towards a higher level of proficiency is achievable . . . and this report offers a vehicle to understand the progress." (Reach reporter Kayla Cogdill at 250-8251 or kaylacogdill@;bismarcktribune.net.)