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S.C.'s education progress by the numbers In Beaufort County, all of the middle and high schools -- except the four-year-old Bluffton High -- have not made "Adequate Yearly Progress," or AYP, for five years in a row.
AYP goals are set annually to ensure that all students test at proficient or advanced levels by 2014 as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
In southern Beaufort County, Daufuskie Island Elementary School was the only school to make AYP, according to data from the S.C. Department of Education.
"It would be hard for me to put a happy face on this data," said school district superintendent Valerie Truesdale.
Those schools that have been on the list as not making AYP for five consecutive years will have to come up with a restructuring plan that could include reopening as a charter school, replacing staff or turning over operation of the school to the state or a private company.
School district administrators are reviewing their options and trying to figure out the best improvement plan, said John Williams, assistant superintendent for information services. Officials will look to other school districts in the state and across the country to come up with a plan, he said.
"As we close in on that 2014 deadline, it's really going to be a domino effect of more and more school districts in more and more states falling further and further behind," Williams said.
FALLING NUMBERS
In South Carolina, AYP is linked to students' performance on the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, given annually in grades three through eight. High schools are judged on data from exit exams and graduation rates.
The district as a whole did not make its AYP goals. But it wasn't alone. None of South Carolina's 85 school districts made AYP this year, according to the state education department.
Statewide, only 399 of 1,067 schools made AYP. That's down from 416 schools last year.
S.C. schools superintendent Jim Rex said that if No Child Left Behind isn't revised, nearly all of the nation's schools eventually will face federal sanctions because they won't be able to reach the 2014 proficiency goal.
No Child Left Behind "requires 100 percent proficiency, and that isn't going to happen," Rex said in a statement. "On top of that, it rewards states for lowering their expectations for students and schools. The only states that ultimately will escape federal sanctions will be those that set the bar an inch off the floor."
South Carolina's standardized test, the PACT, has been deemed more rigorous than other states by researchers, most recently by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that studied standardized tests in 26 states.
'A VERY UPHILL ROAD'
While few Beaufort County schools met the AYP goals this year, some failed by only minuscule margins.
For AYP purposes, any school or district that does not meet all of its objectives is considered to be failing the federal standard. Objectives are set for the overall school population as well as for each subgroup of students based on factors such as gender, race or family income.
Seven of the schools that didn't make AYP missed it by three or fewer goals. In southern Beaufort County, Hilton Head Island High School and Bluffton and M.C. Riley elementary schools missed the target by two goals.
For example, Bluffton Elementary School would have made AYP if students identified as speaking limited English had scored better on the English language arts portion of the PACT and if black students had scored higher on the test's math section.
M.C. Riley Elementary School experienced similar problems. The school also would have met its goals if both Hispanic students and students speaking limited English had scored higher in English language arts.
Schools with more diversity and larger schools generally have more subgroups of students, so those schools have a higher number of objectives to meet. Individual students can fall into more than one subgroup.
"Schools with diversity have a very uphill road to travel because it's so much more difficult for larger schools, more diverse schools to make AYP," said Kathy Corley, the district's academic improvement officer who oversees Bluffton area schools.
Superintendent Truesdale said the district must "work to align the curriculum with instruction and assessment" to improve student results on the PACT.
"It's not so much focusing in on a school as it is what practices in the classroom are assisting students in learning, what programs help our students move forward," Truesdale said. The question is "how can we replicate those in multiple places and not continue to do those things that are not providing the yield?"
