No Child Left Untested!

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The Federal Rankings

Under the federal No Child Left Behind act, schools are evaluated by their year-to-year improvement, or "Adequate Yearly Progress." If a school fails to make AYP for two years running, its students are eligible to transfer (and be transported at district expense) to schools with better scores. As of Oct. 1, this sanction applies to eight AISD campuses:

High schools: Johnston, Lanier, LBJ, Reagan, Travis

Middle schools: Burnet, Fulmore, Porter

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The State Rankings

The Texas Education Agency uses a single year's data to give schools one of four rankings: exemplary, recognized, acceptable, or unacceptable. No sanctions are directly tied to the rankings. Twenty-three AISD schools were ranked "exceptional" or "recognized," 75 were deemed "acceptable," and five campuses received the lowest ranking:

High schools: Johnston

Middle schools: Webb

Elementaries: Harris, Pecan Springs, Pickle

Seven of the eight schools that failed the federal AYP ranking (all but Johnston) were ranked "acceptable" by the state, and AISD as a whole was ranked "acceptable." For the full report, see www.tea.state.tx.us.

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What About the Charters?

Austin's 16 charter schools fared about as well as AISD in the annual state accountability rankings – that is, mediocre. None of the 16 local charters, publicly funded but privately run, received a ranking of "exemplary" or "recognized"; two were "unacceptable," and four were not rated because their high enrollment of students with special needs qualified them as "alternative education" facilities. Critics charge it is unfair to exempt charters from rankings – many regular school districts struggle with the same demographics and still have to face the test-data music – and postulate that the policy is designed to conceal charters' poor performance. In a sad commentary on test data's reliability as a measure of quality, the Texas Academy of Excellence was ranked "acceptable" despite going bankrupt and closing this spring, leaving bills and teachers' salaries unpaid for months. The school's administrators are currently under investigation by the district attorney's office.