For two years in a row, fifteen school districts in the state have failed to meet the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The law requires students to show yearly progress on state testing – with the ultimate goal that all children perform on grade level.
That’s not happening in Manchester, one of the districts recently labeled “in need of improvement.â€
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports on the obstacles the district now has to overcome.
The state’s largest school district is struggling.
Manchester’s Hispanic, black, poor, and disabled students have failed to perform well on state tests.
But white students aren’t doing much better.
According to the No Child Left Behind law, 60-percent of 3rd and 6th graders had to have a basic understand of reading material.
In 2004, just 62-percent of white students met that goal.
Assistant Superintendent Frank Bass says being labeled a district in need of improvement is a wake-up call.
“The knee jerk reaction for any district was holy cow what happened, but I think after the initial shock we realized this was a great opportunity it was a chance for us to rethink what we do in the Manchester schools and regardless of where our student scores ultimately end up we can make our delivery of the curriculum and make opportunities for all students significantly better†20
But others in the district weren’t surprised by the new label.
(nat sound classroom)
At Bakersville Elementary, 5th grade teacher Susan Morill says she knew many of her students weren’t prepared for fifth grade.
1091 :51 I currently in my classroom have 44 percent of my students below grade level, the assessment that we just administered, so my goal is to get maybe five percent more up in the next few months on grade level.
40-percent of the students at Bakersville are not only learning the basic subjects, but are also learning English for the first time.
50-percent come from one public housing complex.
Morrill says the difficulties of getting all her students on grade level are compounded by a reading curriculum that’s nine years old.
1091 :42 A lot of the stories, the Houghton Mifflin stories were written on a fifth grade level, but the reality is, the students, many of them aren’t there, so we need other ways to get them up to where they’re supposed to be
In order to understand the main point of a story, students have to be able to read and understand all the vocabulary.
The problem is the current curriculum is inflexible.
Bakersville Elementary Principal Judy Adams says if the students can’t read the words, teachers still have to work with it.
So you had to do the story, it wasn’t like as a teacher you could say oh, I don’t think this story is appropriate for my students, they don’t have the background, you could not do that, you had to introduce the story to them in order to be able to do the skill and strategy work that followed it up.
That meant students spent less time learning the fifth grade skills they needed to pass state tests.
Math curriculum is just as problematic; textbooks are 13 years old.
But Bakersville isn’t the only school in Manchester to experience these curricula problems, they plague the entire district.
Making matters worse, district administrators say the curriculum doesn’t match what’s being taught on the state test.
Manchester schools assistant superintendent Frank Bass says when the district began reviewing curricula this summer, even administrators weren’t sure what the state expected students to know at each grade level.
“I’m quite well educated as were many of my colleagues, but as we were looking at the strands, we couldn’t be absolutely certain what the expectation was, we argued amongst ourselves about what are they really asking us to doâ€
And Manchester has another challenge.
The district has 24 schools, each very independent.
While that flexibility is helpful, it also leads to a lack of cohesion in the district.
While all students are taking the same standardized test, not all students are taught the same curriculum on a consistent basis.
Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Karen Burkash says that disconnect can be a huge disadvantage for a student who moves from school to school.
1113 so, if they’re staying in Manchester and they’re moving to another school, where are they curriculum wise, did they miss stuff so that they’re going to another school and woah we’re not on multiplication tables anymore we’re onto something else, it can be pretty significant.
At Bakersville Elementary school, teachers typically see between a quarter to one-third of their students move to or from other schools.
5th grade teacher Susan Morrill says that also affects her ability to teach.
“I would expose them to that story in the curriculum, if they moved to another school within Manchester “oh yeah I remember we read that story or we heard that story†it wasn’t a good tool for me to use to improve their levels to bring them up to where they should be to make those gains.â€
Bakersville Elementary is tackling the problem head on.
Principal Judy Adams is on a committee that’s helping the district update its language arts curriculum and bring it in line with state requirements.
Math curriculum will go through the same process.
The district will map out what students should know at each grade level.
Assistant Superintendent Frank Bass says the district will reign in the flexibility some schools have.
1114 :53 that way students moving from one school to another would not be behind, you’re not going to get it exact, day to day or week to week, but you’re going to be very close, so the lag time will be reduced to almost nothing, and I think that’s extremely important.
No Child Left Behind requires that parents be involved in the process of improving a school district.
Kathy Staub - who has two children attending Manchester schools - says she’s glad the district is finally developing a more unified curriculum.
She says it’s something that should have been done years ago.
Given the importance the district is placing on its curriculum, one would think that the district would have hired a curriculum czar.
But Staub says it hasn’t happened.
1096 :37 nobody has really been in charge of developing curriculum for our school district for a number of years, this past year they had thought about hiring someone, but the school board had decided that there wasn’t money in the budget to hire a person to oversee the curriculum.
Staub worries that without that guidance, the district will have difficulty improving.
Frank Bass is much more hopeful about their plan, but agrees that such a position would help spearhead their efforts.
1115 :46 I think now that with the district in need of improvement and the no child left behind and such a push towards student achievement that a curriculum director will have to come to our staffing at some point in the near future there’s no doubt about that.
For now, the district is relying on the combined effort of teachers, administrators, and parents to review the district’s plan for improvement.
That plan has been submitted to the state for approval.
14 other school districts are going through the same process.
And given the ever increasing standards under No Child Left Behind, there’s every expectation that more school districts will be going through it too.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
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