P'burg schools moved off
state's improvement list
Education Department finds district meeting goals on math
tests.
By Harley Rissmiller
Special to The Morning Call
The Phillipsburg School District is no longer ''in need of
improvement,'' a state status that could have led to severe
penalties down the road, announced the New Jersey Department
of Education Friday.
''That's a good thing,'' said Education Department spokesman
Rich Vespucci. The announcement came as the department
announced its final results of the state's compliance with
the federal No Child Left Behind standards. The results
moved Phillipsburg out of the state's ''in need of
improvement'' status back into good standing.
Phillipsburg had appealed a fall preliminary report that had
identified the district as needing improvement.
''In the end, we are pleased with the decision and we will
continue to move forward,'' said Phillipsburg Superintendent
Gordon Pethick, who attributed the change in status to
curriculum changes that he believes will continue to
generate results. ''We have been doing a lot of work in
mathematics and language arts, and we believe what we're
seeing is the start of a trend.''
Vespucci said in a phone interview that the ''in need of
improvement'' status had come because the K-12 district's
scores on statewide standardized math tests, taken each
March, did not meet the department's Adequate Yearly
Progress standards in 2002 and 2003.
The Education Department ranks schools based on test scores
for students in 40 demographic categories. If a district
does not meet its standards in all 40 categories, the
district is placed first on the early warning list and then
on the ''in need of improvement'' list. Back-to-back years
of not meeting the AYP standards will label a district as
''in need of improvement.''
The department imposes several sanctions for the first year
that a district is in need of improvement, including
requiring the district to provide extra tutoring and send a
letter to parents alerting them of the district's status. If
a district does not meet AYP standards for five consecutive
years, the state could restructure the district. ''This is
the most severe penalty,'' said Vespucci.
Phillipsburg escaped the designation by improving its math
scores districtwide for two consecutive years, 2004 and
2005, said Vespucci. He said that when the department did
its preliminary report last fall, Phillipsburg was
mistakenly identified as still being in need of
improvement.
Vespucci said the error was because the federal deadline for
compiling the information comes before the state is finished
putting together the information from its testing cycle. The
department did not have a chance to correlate the 2005 test
information with the 2004 test information.
Phillipsburg appealed, and when the final report was issued
Friday, it was one of seven districts statewide whose status
had changed since the preliminary report was issued.
Harley Rissmiller is a freelance writer.
Copyright © 2006, The
Morning Call
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