Schools' letter grades obscure some improvements, some setbacks and a persistent achievement gap between black students and their peers.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published June 21, 2004
Michael Ransaw pledged to raise Powell Middle School's state grade from a C to an A when he became the school's principal last year.
The school retained its C, though, and failed to meet the state-written, federally adopted "adequate yearly progress" goals of the No Child Left Behind Act - despite an overhaul to Powell's class schedule, discipline procedure and teacher roster.
Ransaw optimistically proclaimed Powell a "grade A school in many respects," but acknowledged, based on last week's release of grades and progress reports, that a lot of work remains.
Still, he said, "we're headed in the right direction."
The principal based his review on the details behind Powell's grade and yearly progress report - details that gain less attention than the bottom line, yet give educators information on what they are doing well and where they need to make improvements.
Those same details - essentially spreadsheets filled with percentages of students who achieved certain academic standards, broken into racial and socioeconomic groups - also provide tidbits of information about the local schools that otherwise might go unnoticed.
Consider Powell's C, for instance.
Ransaw is correct in stating that his school did better overall than a year ago.
Powell missed a B by five points this year, compared with 15 points a year earlier. It improved the percentage of students at grade level in reading and math as a whole, and in every group except for black students in the reading category.
That's better than any other middle school in the county.
But fewer than half of Powell's students reached grade level in math, as measured by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, and just 54 percent read at grade level.
Three-quarters of the school's black students missed the mark in math and reading - and that's an improvement in math from 2003.
The county's other middle schools, each of which received C's and did not make adequate yearly progress, had similar statistics.
Fox Chapel, for instance, had only 19 percent of black and 30 percent of Hispanic students reading at grade level, compared to 53 percent of white students. Parrott, with the largest number of black children enrolled, had the poorest performance among its black students - 81 percent did not achieve grade level in reading, and 86 percent failed to do so in math.
West Hernando had larger percentages of students performing below grade level this year in every category, except black students in math. That improvement was minimal, from 74 percent in 2003 to 72 percent.
The high school percentages mirrored the middle schools' on grade-level performance.
The reports also showed that graduation rates increased at most high schools.
That was not the case at Hernando High School.
In 2003, Hernando High's graduation rate dropped from 77 percent to 67 percent.
The most precipitous drops were among black students - 76 percent in 2002 and 37 percent a year later - and the economically disadvantaged - 70 percent to 48 percent. As usual, the county's elementary schools offered the brightest spots.
Nine of the 10 scored enough points to earn A's, although Brooksville and Westside got B's instead because they did not have at least half of their lowest-performing students improve in reading.
Brooksville missed an A because of two students' scores, and Westside by a few children more.
"We still have some students who, no matter how much you impress upon them the importance of doing well, they have no motivation," Brooksville principal Sue Stoops said. "It's frustrating when you have children who are capable but don't try to do their best."
Only three of the elementary schools made adequate yearly progress, according to the federally approved guidelines. All 10 were close, though.
To make adequate yearly progress, a school had to succeed in all 30 categories defined under the standard. Missing one meant failure.
All county elementary schools achieved at least 90 percent of the criteria.
Moton Elementary missed in only one category.
The rule required that the percentage of students scoring 3.0 or better on the FCAT writing exam rise by one point. That didn't happen at Moton. Eighty percent of students made the grade, but that was down from 88 percent last year.
Otherwise, the school showed large percentage gains in students at grade level, across all groups, in every category. It met every other standard.
Because of that one blemish, every student at Moton - one of just two Hernando elementary schools below capacity - may request a transfer to another school.
No Child Left Behind allows students attending low-income schools that receive federal Title I funds to transfer if their school fails to make adequate yearly progress in the same category - reading, math or writing - for two consecutive years. (If a school misses the progress level for three years, then it must offer individualized tutoring to low-income and low-performing students who ask for it.)
Moton families considering transfers would not find many schools that had better overall performances.
Moton, which had a C in 2001 and a D in 1999, was Hernando County's second-highest-rated A school this year.
Moton earned 449 of a possible 600 points toward an A.
Only J.D. Floyd Elementary did better, with 455 points and success in achieving adequate yearly progress.
Floyd had 73 percent of its students at or above grade level in reading, and 71 percent in math.
