Georgia schools in every district but Atlanta are expected to learn Thursday whether they’ve made the all-important and increasingly tougher-to-meet federal measure of Adequate Yearly Progress -- something that last year eluded 29 percent of them and 67 percent of the state's high schools.
For a second straight year, AYP results for the Atlanta Public Schools will be released later due to the school system’s cheating scandal, said Matt Cardoza, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Education.
A recent state investigation uncovered evidence that teachers and principals at at least 44 Atlanta schools were for years changing answers on the Criterion-Reference Competency Tests to boost students' scores and help foster the district's national image as an urban success story.
Since CRCT scores factor into the AYP status of a school district and its schools, state officials are withholding judgment on APS until they are confident in the accuracy of the test data they are using, Cardoza said.
AYP results for Atlanta schools were delayed last year by several months and are not expected this year for at least three more weeks, the spokesman said.
In the meantime, school officials in the other 179 local school districts are anxiously awaiting the 2011 AYP report.
"Most principals I know check their own school's data to determine AYP status before the official results are published. If we spot an error, we are given the opportunity to have district and state personnel review what we feel is an error and to have the error corrected before it is published," said John Campbell, principal of Gwinnett County's Osborne Middle School.
Sarah Towler, the new principal at Marietta's Dunleith Elementary School, said she'll be inspecting her school's AYP report "very closely" and finding ways to motivate and recognize her staff and students for their academic achievements.
"Similarly, we will develop improvement strategies where warranted," Towler said. "As a former school principal in an award-winning Texas school district, we would hold a celebration for staff and students when your school made AYP."
The No Child Left Behind Act requires that 100 percent of schools in each state make AYP by 2013-2014, though there's already talk of that goal being unreasonable and possibly discarded.
Georgia appeared to be making small but steady headway until last year, when 29 percent of all schools failed to make AYP, up from 21 percent the previous year. The drop was blamed, in large part, on tougher math requirements that elementary and middle school students had to meet for their school to make AYP.
At the same time, high schools also had to meet a new and higher graduation rate of 80 percent. That was cited as a potential factor in a dramatic 14 percentage-point drop in the number of high schools making AYP, from 47 percent in 2009 to 33 percent in 2010.
One small bright spot was a slight dip in the number of schools in Needs Improvement status, from 334 to 305. A final AYP report, which was released in the fall, helped boost the numbers slightly, taking into account summer retest scores, summer graduates and appeals.
The state used a complex formula of test scores, graduation rates, attendance and other factors to determine AYP. The performance of select groups, such as minorities, low-income students, students with disabilities and children who are not fluent in English, also carry weight -- so that the entire school fails if just one group misses the mark.
Schools that don't make AYP for two consecutive years are classified as Needs Improvement. Students at those schools can receive free tutoring. Parents of such students also have the option of transferring their children.
After a school has been in Needs Improvement for five years, a state director is put into the school to help with a turnaround.
There also is the possibility of bonuses for Title I schools for making AYP at least three straight years.
Need improvement
Metro Atlanta schools that were classified as "Needs Improvement" in 2010:
ATLANTA
Crim High School
Douglass High School
Harper-Archer Middle School
Hillside Conant School
Hutchinson Elementary School
Maynard H. Jackson Jr. High School
North Atlanta High School
School of Technology at Carver High
South Atlanta Law and Social Justice School
South Atlanta School of Computer Animation and Design
Therrell School of Engineering, Math, and Science
Therrell School of Health and Science
Therrell School of Law, Government and Public Policy
Washington High School Senior Academy
CHEROKEE COUNTY
Polaris Evening School
CLAYTON COUNTY
Jonesboro High School
Jonesboro Middle School
Lake Ridge Elementary School
Lovejoy Middle School
Morrow High School
Mount Zion High School
Mundy's Mill High School
North Clayton High School
Pointe South Middle School
Riverdale High School
COBB COUNTY
Devereux Ackerman Academy
Oakwood High School
Osborne High School
Pebblebrook High School
DEKALB COUNTY
Avondale High School
Avondale Middle School
Cedar Grove High School
Clarkston High School
Columbia High School
Cross Keys High School
DeKalb/Rockdale PsychoEducation Center
Dunwoody High School
Elizabeth Andrews High School
Freedom Middle School
Indian Creek Elementary School
International Student Center
Lithonia High School
Lithonia Middle School
Martin Luther King Jr. High School
Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School
McNair High School
McNair Middle School
Miller Grove High School
Miller Grove Middle School
Oakview Elementary School
Redan High School
Ronald E McNair Discover Learning Academy Elementary School
Southwest DeKalb High School
Stephenson High School
Stone Mill Elementary School
Stone Mountain High School
Towers High School
Tucker High School
FULTON COUNTY
Banneker High School
Creekside High School
McClarin Alternative School
McNair Middle School
North Springs High School
Renaissance Middle School
Tri-Cities High School
GWINNETT COUNTY
Berkmar High School
Phoenix High School
Source: Georgia Department of Education
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