For the seventh consecutive year, every public school in Fayette County has made Adequate Yearly Progress.
AYP is the formula used to determine if schools are meeting expectations under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. It consists of three parts--test participation, academic achievement and another statistic, called a "second indicator."
The academic goals continue to rise every few years toward a goal of 100 percent proficiency for all students by 2014, according to Matt Cardoza, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Education.
This year, the academic goal for grades three through eight increased in mathematics and the graduation rate bar went up.
Fayette is among 27 systems in Georgia with all schools meeting AYP requirements in 2010. Of these, most have fewer than 10 schools, compared to Fayette's 28, said Fayette County School System spokeswoman Melinda Berry-Dreisbach.
In the metro Atlanta area, only the Decatur and Marietta city school systems has all schools making AYP. The final AYP report will be released in the fall and will include summer retest scores, summer graduates and appeals.
While all of Fayette's schools are in top shape, AYP-wise, the state's have some work to do, even though the percentage of schools in the Needs Improvement category declined.
Just over 14 percent of schools are in NI status this year, compared to 15.4 percent last year, Cardoza said. Thirty-five schools across the state shook the Needs Improvement label by having made AYP for two consecutive years.
"The initial AYP results demonstrate that our schools are more focused than ever and that is translating into fewer schools in Needs Improvement status," said State School Superintendent Brad Bryant. "However, the academic bar and the graduation rate requirement increased this year, leading to a smaller percentage of schools making AYP, which is something we will focus closely on over the next several months."
More than 71 percent of Georgia's public schools made AYP, a drop from 79 percent of schools that made AYP last year. This drop is due in large part to the increase in the academic bar in mathematics that students in elementary and middle school had to meet in order for a school to make AYP. The graduation rate that high schools must meet also increased this year to 80 percent.
The percentage of high schools making AYP continues to lag behind. In 2010, just over 33 percent of the state's high schools made AYP, a decrease of almost 14 percentage points from 2009's initial results.
"We know there is a lot of hard work going on in our high schools, but we must provide more focused support for our students and teachers," Superintendent Bryant said. "I am committed to focusing on the needs of our high schools to ensure they are preparing students for the 21st century."
Bryant said the AYP release sheds more light on the need for Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--No Child Left Behind. Even though both the Spellings administration and the Duncan administration at the U.S. Department of Education have worked to grant administrative flexibility, it has been insufficient to overcome the original accountability benchmarks established by Congress in 2001, he said.
"As a state, we have no problem moving toward a proficiency rate of 100 percent-- to do anything else would underserve a portion of Georgia's students," said Bryant.
"We are frustrated over the fact that the original authorization of No Child Left Behind came with the promise that it would be reauthorized in five years with increased flexibility in return for increased accountability," Bryant said. "Once again we call upon Congress to act in a manner which supports the hundreds of thousands of teachers and school leaders across the nation who are more focused on student learning than ever before."
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