Schools

One Acworth School Misses AYP Targets

Eleven out of 12 Acworth area schools met the 2010-11 Adequate Yearly Progress marks.

The Georgia Department of Education released the initial 2010-11 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report Thursday, which evaluates how schools are meeting goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

was among the 30 schools in the Cobb County School District that failed to meet this year's statewide standards, while 11 others in the Acworth area made AYP.

There has been an increase in the number of targets in this year's AYP that measures schools' performances. In addition to academic performance and test participation, schools must also meet or surpass goals in a third category that evaluates the performance of specific subgroups. All students must meet goals in all three categories in order for the school to make AYP.

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The additional requirements as well as elevated academic goals have resulted in the increase in the number of Cobb schools that failed to meet the standards this year, officials say. Last year, 17 Cobb schools missed AYP targets, compared to 30 this year.

"Unfortunately, the first thing most people will see is that more of our schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress this year, but that doesn't tell the whole story," Cobb Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said in a statement.

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"The reality is that under the No Child Left Behind Act the targets jumped significantly this year, and yet overall we met 95 percent of the indicators, which is higher than last year, 85 percent of our students met or exceeded standards, and we showed significant improvement in the performance of key student groups," said Hinojosa, noting that targets are likely to continue to increase, resulting in more schools not making AYP.

Acworth Intermediate did not make Adequate Yearly Progress this year, because the school's Students with Disability subgroup did not meet the mark on the CRCT math exam. The school did meet all other state benchmarks, and is not in the Needs Improvement program, which is for schools that do not meet AYP for two consecutive years.

The Acworth area schools that have made Adequate Yearly Progress are:

The final AYP report will be released in the fall, which will include summer retest scores, summer graduates and appeals. Those factors could help some schools ultimately make AYP.


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