Fifteen of Moore County's 21 public schools met performance standards mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act for the 2008-2009 school year -- a significant increase from last year.

The Moore County school system made preliminary Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) results available Wednesday. The results are pending approval Aug. 6 by the State Board of Education. Eight schools in the system met all of their goals for the 2007-2008 year, and 11 met their goals in 2006-2007.

This year's results are the best for the district since 2004, when 16 schools met AYP.

"Our goal every year is to improve instruction so that we can ultimately see all of our students reach their potential," said Superintendent Susan Purser. "Our teachers, administrators and students are to be commended for the hard work and dedication that has brought about this improvement."

The school district itself met 56 out of 62 target goals, or 90.3 percent.

"Much of the improvement can be attributed to the hard work of our teachers and administrators in studying the data from the previous year's AYP results and using that data to develop our School Improvement Plans," said Beverlee Beale, executive director for curriculum.

All three Moore County high schools -- Pinecrest, Union Pines and North Moore -- failed to meet AYP this year. It is the second straight year Pinecrest and Union Pines have not met the standards. North Moore met all of its goals last year.

Aberdeen Primary, Aberdeen Elementary, Pinckney Academy and Westmoore Elementary also fell short.

Seven schools met AYP this year that did not make it in 2008: Carthage Elementary, Robbins Elementary, Southern Middle, Southern Pines Primary, Southern Pines Elementary, Vass-Lakeview Elementary, and West Pine Middle.

Other schools that made AYP are Cameron Elementary, Elise Middle, Sandhills Farm Life Elementary, Highfalls Elemen-tary, New Century Middle, Academy Heights Elementary, Pinehurst Elemen-tary, and West End Elementary.

Southern Pines Primary and Aberdeen Primary schools are not included in the state's ABCs testing program on which AYP is based. Their status on AYP is determined by the status of the schools into which they "feed" -- Southern Pines Elementary and Aberdeen Elementary.

Pinckney Academy is also not included in the results since alternative schools are measured by a different standard.

AYP is an "all-or-nothing" evaluation system based on student testing in reading and mathematics. A school does not achieve AYP unless it fulfills 100 percent of its target goals.

For example, even though Westmoore Elementary met 12 of 13 -- or 92.3 percent -- of its goals, it still did not meet AYP this year.

Purser explained that meeting AYP is not just a matter of overall improvement for a school's population. Schools must show improvement in each of 10 target groups. If the standard is not met for reading or math by just one of the 10 subgroups, then, according to No Child Left Behind, the entire school has not met AYP.

Those groups are white, black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, multiracial, economically disadvantaged, limited-English proficient, students with disabilities and the total school population. Those groups must have at least 40 students for the school to be held accountable for the AYP standard.

"In spite of the fact that our schools met over 95 percent of our target goals (308 of 323), six of 21 schools did not meet some of their AYP targets," Purser said. "Some schools have as many as 25 target goals, and, if only one of the 25 has not been met, then the entire school has not met AYP. Three of the six schools that did not meet AYP this year missed it by only one or two target goals."

The goal of No Child Left Behind is for all public school children to perform at grade level in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-2014 school year.

Contact John Krahnert III at 693-2473 or by e-mail at jkrahnert@thepilot.com.