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As a roosevelt teacher, it is always hard to hear these discussions that focus on the negative side of our school. RHS teachers (regardless of the small school) are extremely dedicated and focused on preparing our students for college and life outside of high school.

Each small school has shown great growth in the last 4 years. POWER Academy last year, although we "failed", showed over a 50% increase in graduation rate from 50% to over 75% percent. We also more than doubled our math pass rate. Unfortunately, we only increased our reading by 6% (instead of the 10% needed for AYP) and are only at 54% passing. We know we can do better, but we also really are celebrating our success. Small school research says it takes roughly 5 years to really start seeing success. We will start our 5th year this year and are posed for a great year.

Graduation rate is extremely important but it is important to look at how it is calculated. If an eighth grader moves and since he is starting a new high school in a new state, they may never request his records and we will never know that he transfered to a school somewhere else. This student is reported as a high school drop out and hurts our graduation rate.

With the tests it is important to look at what the tests are and what they tell teachers. (The tests are different in each state). The tests although they tell teachers where kids are, they do not help diagose students weaknesses and provide very little information to help teachers teach better. And, I agree with Sue, we test kids three times, each test (math, reading, and science) takes kids at least 2-3 hours to take. When a kid takes 1 hour of math each day, that really means that their whole week is spent on math testing, the next week is science, and then the final week is reading, and this happens three times.

Portland Public's focus on data (and other pieces of data beyond AYP testing) does help us target struggling students and is helpful for schools. We are moving in the right direction, unfortunatly at a school like Roosevelt NCLB sactions and negative conversations hurt our forward progress.

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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