THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 29, 1996 TAG: 9605290409
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 68 lines
North Carolina's new plan to hold schools accountable for their teaching was a strong motivator in at least one of 10 districts trying out the program this year.
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Public Schools on Tuesday reported yearly reading and math test scores that Superintendent Joe Peel said were ``better than we ever could have dreamed.''
Schools did so well on the test, in fact, that many teachers may be eligible for $500 to $1,000 bonuses from the state, officials said.
The end-of-grade tests were taken by nearly every third- through eighth-grader in the state last Tuesday and Wednesday. Under ``The New ABCs of Public Education,'' the tests are being used as the single measure of whether schools have done well or poorly over the past year.
Under the new plan, schools must meet state goals of a year's growth among groups of students. Schools that do not meet the standards are helped or punished. Those that show 110 percent growth over the year are rewarded.
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank exceeded the state goals in every grade level in reading, and in all but middle-school scores in math, said Rita Collie, director of testing and accountability. The numbers still have to be confirmed by the state, she said.
``Every single school had the same experience,'' Collie told the Board of Education. ``They had massive improvement. We had no school that failed to improve over its past performance.
``We have more students at grade level than we've ever had, in reading and math.''
Collie said she is not sure which schools' teachers may be eligible for the bonus, because she hasn't worked out which tests qualify for the 110 percent improvement measure. Students must have been in the school for 120 days for their scores to count, she said.
``I think every school has a chance,'' Collie said outside the meeting. ``We're bound to have in many cases.''
Collie says the ABCs and newly important end-of-grade tests, which were feared and loathed throughout the year, have shown they can get results.
``The whole ABCs is based on the fact that if you try, you can bring North Carolina up,'' Collie said. ``I don't think anybody believed that you can deliver more than a year's worth. . . . But looking at this, it can be done.''
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank this year has 63.3 percent of its third- through eighth-graders reading at grade level, up six percentage points from last year. In math, 61.8 percent are on grade level, up almost 10 percentage points.
The incredible growth is especially gratifying in Elizabeth City-Pasquotank, which has failed to grow in these areas over the three preceding years.
``It's really good news,'' Collie said. ``It's just exciting.''
The district was one of 10 in the state serving as a pilot site for the New ABCs, which aims to bring more control to local districts and hold individual schools accountable for whether students learn.
Collie said the new measure of improvement - charting the growth of groups of students from year to year - is a fairer measure than comparing one district's students to another. But educators had also feared that putting so much emphasis on a single multiple-choice test would hurt the teaching process.
Collie said she thinks individual schools that grew 110 percent over state-set goals in pilot districts would be able to collect on the rewards from a pool of money already set aside.
In the fall, the rest of the state will begin the ABCs program, working with growth goals that are based on last week's test results. High schools will become part of the program the following year, after a system of measuring growth is worked out. by CNB