Who is failing whom?

Take a look at this:



You can see this chart in context and read the entire document here.

Do ya get it? Statewide, schools are not meeting AYP. We could look at this in a number of ways: NJ schools, teachers, administrators, and students are really as bad as the public wants to believe. On the one hand, these stats mask the truly dangerous and academically lacking schools in a sea of other schools. This is not what NCLB wanted to have happen. The ED wanted to be able to highlight the schools that were doing amazing things and pressure schools that were not to do a better job of educating their students. And let's be real, there are some schools that need to do a better job.

On the other hand, I have to ask what AYP is not taking into consideration. What the chart above doesn't talk show is that some of the best schools in the state and in the nation are having trouble making AYP. This leads me to wonder if how they determine AYP is more of a problem than the schools themselves.

OK, so that was a facetious question/statement. I have real issues with how AYP is determined. As I talked about before, I just spent three days visiting amazing schools in an urban center close to my home. There were amazing schools, and not all of them met AYP. Because of that, all the amazing stuff they do get lost in the fact that they don't meet AYP.