(Host) This year sixty one Vermont schools fell below the Adequate Yearly Progress standard established under the No Child Left Behind Law.
There were only ten schools that did not meet the standard last year, and four of those got off the list this year.
Commissioner Richard Cate says 75% of the targeted schools missed the standard because of significant number of student who were either from poor families or had learning disabilities.
Cate says the adequate yearly progress test is a poor yardstick for measuring how good or bad a school is.
(Cate) “We cannot absolutely judge the quality of a school by this rather broad, wide-ranging definition of so-called adequate yearly progress’. It is one indicator. We need to look at it, we need to pay attention to it. But we need to dig much more deeply into what is going on in schools in order to help kids. And this has to be about what can we do to help kids, and not about casting blame in one direction or another.”
(Host) At the top of the list of problem schools is Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, which has missed the adequate progress standard for six years in a row.