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Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Hope told The Missourian that the district is still trying hard to meet federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) goals, which are easier for other states with less rigorous testing.
"We are striving to do the best we can," she said. "It makes you proud of the progress we have made, but we still want them (students) to strive to do better."
Missouri has much more difficult testing standards, but still must meet the same federal requirements as states with low testing standards.
"Unfortunately, NCLB does not recognize these higher standards and is punishing Missouri districts and schools for not meeting the target scores even though the Missouri tests are more difficult," Hope told the school board in August.
The findings are based on a new study, "Mapping State Proficiency Standards onto NAEP Scales: 2005-2007." The analysis looks at academic proficiency standards set by each state and compares them by using the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as the common yardstick.
The new NCES study shows that states vary widely in where they set their student proficiency standards in reading and mathematics in grades four and eight. By "mapping" the state standards onto the common scale used in the NAEP testing program, the study measures the relative difficulty of each state's expectations.
"This validates that we know Missouri has high standards but we are still going to keep trying," Hope added. "It helps swallow that pill, I want to be close to 100 percent."
In August, Central Elementary was identified as a "Level 3" school "in need of improvement," under the federal NCLB requirements.
The designation is the result of subgroups at the school not meeting the annual proficiency target under AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) guidelines, according to Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Hope.
Depending on enrollment, subgroups may include black, white, special education and low-income students - all which must meet the same level of achievement.
Although the school did not meet the state established target, there was districtwide improvement of 3.4 percent in communication arts. Union High School scores have increased significantly from 49.3 to 73.2 percent of students scoring at the proficient level in communication arts. Union Middle School students improved in all subgroups even though they did not make the target score and Clark-Vitt met the AYP target scores in all subgroups, except for one subgroup in math.
Based on the study, Missouri's proficiency standards are:v * Second in rigor only to Massachusetts in grade four reading and grade four math.
* Second only to South Carolina in grade eight reading.
* Fourth in the nation in grade eight mathematics (behind South Carolina, Massachusetts and Hawaii).
