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High schools meet AYP
None of county's schools added to improvement list
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008
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Earlier this year, it was announced that all Calvert County elementary and middle schools met the state of Maryland's adequate yearly progress (AYP) standards. Now the same can be said of the county's high schools.
The criterion on which AYP is based involves student performance in reading and mathematics, as measured through the Maryland High School Assessments (HSA).
Ted Haynie, the director of system performance for Calvert County public schools, said that the reason the county's students have high test scores has to do with the test information being the same material students are already learning.
"We don't prepare students to take a test; the test itself becomes an alignment of our curriculum," Haynie said.
Test scores are measured each year when state education officials set targets that school systems must achieve across all grade levels and in all race/ethnicity and special-services categories. The latter groups include special education, limited English proficient and economically disadvantaged students. The race categories include American Indian, Asian, African-American, Hispanic and white students.
AYP also measures a combined score of all the subgroups, and if certain schools are measured as under performing, they are placed on a school improvement list.
If Calvert County schools were ever marked as needing improvement, they would work with the county school system's central office to come up with a set of strategies, said Gail Bennett, spokesperson for Calvert County public schools.
"Currently, we have no schools in that situation in our system," Haynie said.
Bennett said a reason for this accomplishment is because, "the biggest thing we do is that we use specific student information to individualize instruction for each student to meet his or her learning needs."
Haynie said AYP is an "outgrowth" of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires students to show progress in reading and math across all grade levels and in all subgroups including race/ethnicity, special education, limited English speaking students and students receiving free or reduced priced meals.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires that every school meet AYP by 2014.
lbuck@somdnews.com
