Federal, state report cards vary widely on Oregon schools

By JULIA SILVERMAN
The Associated Press

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PORTLAND — Fewer than 40 Oregon schools have been flagged by the state for having serious problems, based on annual report cards that analyze testing performance, attendance levels, dropout rates and student improvement.

But more than 340 Oregon schools were told by the federal government that they needed to get better based on testing data from the same period.

The discrepancy is fueling state education officials' push to blend elements of the state and federal progress reports, to come up with one umbrella rating for schools.

"It does not make sense for Oregon to have two completely different rating systems, one from Oregon and one from Washington, D.C.," state Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo said in a statement yesterday. "I am proposing that we make major changes to both the [state] school report card and the federal report to come up with a single measure of school progress."

But blending elements of the two report cards could be controversial, in part because the state wants the single report to count the progress students make toward meeting testing goals from one year to the next.

By contrast, the federal law, called No Child Left Behind, mandates that every student, regardless of background, must meet yearly testing goals — their improvement isn't factored in.

Next year, the federal law requires 50 percent of students to be at grade level in reading and math; by 2014, schools that get federal funds must bring all students up to grade level or face a range of consequences.

Other results in the state school report card hewed fairly close to the data released last year, which Castillo chalked up to the fact that state school budgets have remained roughly the same over the past few years.

According to the state, 130 Oregon schools can be considered "exceptional," 339 were rated as "strong" and most — 546 schools — were considered "satisfactory." An additional 27 were rated as "low," and 10 high schools were considered "unacceptable." Last year, only five schools were rated as "unacceptable," but 34 were classified as "low."
 
The low and unacceptable-ranked schools are mainly in urban communities around the state, with concentrations in Portland, the Salem-Woodburn corridor, the Eugene-Springfield area, Medford and Bend.

Most of the schools that got an "exceptional" rating were elementary schools, consistent with testing results that show that many Oregon students are working at or above grade level in the first five grades, only to fall behind in middle or high school.

Eight schools scored an "exceptional" rating from the state but were told by the federal government that they weren't up to standard, including some of the state's best-regarded high schools, such as Lake Oswego, Lakeridge, South Eugene and Lincoln High in Portland.

Steve Hill, the principal of High Lakes Elementary School in Bend, which got an exceptional rating from the state, said his school did not meet the federal targets because the parents of some special-education students would not let their children take assessment tests. Under the federal rules, at least 95 percent of children must be tested for a school to pass muster.

"I am going to guess that the Oregon report card gives a better picture of a school," Hill said. "The intent [of the federal law] is noble, but the practicality of it does not work very well."

Rick Stiggins, the founder of Portland-based Assessment Training Institute, which helps educators interpret and apply the results of the tests their students take, said test scores don't tell the entire picture about a school.

"We need to keep the once-a-year tests in perspective," he said. "They can highlight where things are not working or are working, but by themselves they can't fix things. They need to be balanced with good classroom assessment."