LETTERS - Redmond El. parent
"You may be interested to know that both Redmond Elementary and Einstein Elementary did not make "Adequate Yearly Progress" under the No Child Left Behind Act for the second year in a row.
Parents at those schools are being offered the option of sending their kids to schools that are not failing. Redmond students were offered the choice of Norman Rockwell or Horace Mann. Einstein students are rumored to have been offered the choice of Norman Rockwell or Wilder. See the Lake Washington School District press release: http://lwsd.org/News/News-and-Announcements/Pages/LWSD-Students-Perform-Well-on-2009-WASL.aspx
The recent principal at Redmond El retired and the district has replaced her with a principal with a reputation of successfully improving schools. Parents at Redmond El are in a position of trying to decide if they should jump off a failing ship or stick it out and keep trying to improve the school."
-- from a Redmond Elementary School parent
Submitted by email: Parent's name has been withheld by request.
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Einstein and Redmond Elementary Schools are both very good elementary schools that serve diverse families and students well. Unfortunately, the federal No Child Left Behind act has created a system that is confusing and arbitrary.
ReplyDeleteIf a school does not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), that does not at all mean they are "failing." According to federal law, if a school has 30 students in any one of eight subgroups, and a lower percentage of that subgroup does not meet the standard in either math or reading, then the entire school is labeled as not making AYP. The rest of the school can be succeeding spectacularly and the school is still branded with this label. This year, 60 percent of schools in the state of Washington did not make AYP, including schools that made the Newsweek list of top high schools in the country.
I encourage parents to look much more closely into the data for the total results of a school and to look carefully at their student's results before coming to any conclusions about what AYP means for their school. There is a more complete Q&A on this subject posted on the school web sites for both Einstein and Redmond Elementary in addition to the link that Bob provided.
Kathryn Reith
Communications Director, Lake Washington School District
kreith@lwsd.org
Quite frankly you are giving the parents at Red El very little credit for understanding the community of this school or AYP/NCLB. My child has been attending Red El and I have been an active parent in this community. I am also very knowledgeable about assessments, AYP and NCLB. I am in complete agreement that AYP is not the full measure of a school. However, you need to look more closely at this school and its problems. Parents have been speaking up about Redmond El and its problems for years. Letters have been written, phone calls made, but the district has virtually ignored these issues. The PTA has rallied and has supported this school for years. Grants have been written by parents, lessons have been taught by parents, children have been supported by parents. But, this school has continued to fail many of our kids. No one at the district level has been able to explain to me why there is a pattern of failure at this school. When you analyze the data, you can see clearly that children's scores decrease as they move up grade levels at this school. If you compare this school to comparable schools in Bellevue (with similar SES, ELL and SpEd populations), the differences are startling. I am shocked that you would use the phrases "succeeding spectacularly" and "very good school" when nearly the entire PTA board has chosen to remove their children. Lake Washington has failed our children - please don't condescend to telling me that I just don't understand AYP...fix this school.
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