Moore County public schools saw a significant drop in adequate yearly progress (AYP), despite the fact that the system maintained its test scores this year.

According to preliminary results released Thursday by the school system, only three schools made AYP on end-of-grade tests last year and the system, as a whole, did not receive the recognition.

AYP is an all-or-nothing accountability model that assesses academic growth in reading and math each year as a part of the federal 2001 No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) mandate that all public school students will be performing at or above their grade level by 2014.

Schools that did meet the federal benchmark were Academy Heights Elementary School, Cameron Elementary School and Pinehurst Elementary School.

Elementary schools that made AYP last year but did not this year were Aberdeen, High Falls, Robbins, Sandhills Farmlife, Vass-Lakeview Elementary and West End. Elementary schools that did not make AYP for the second year in a row were Carthage, Southern Pines and Westmoore.

In its first year of operation, West Pine Elementary School did not make AYP, though it met 12 out of 13 target goals.

Aberdeen Primary and Southern Pines Primary also failed to make AYP, but the two schools receive their status based on the performance of their sister schools, Aberdeen Elementary and Southern Pines Elementary, because academic assessments for NCLB begin in third grade.

Two of the county's middle schools did not make AYP this year, but did last year: Elise and West Pine.

New Century Middle School and Southern Middle School both have failed to meet AYP in the last two years. New Century made 18 of its 21 target goals, and Southern Middle made 23 out of 25 goals.

As a new middle school this past year, Crain's Creek Middle failed to make AYP, meeting 14 out of 19 target goals.

For the third year in a row, none of the county's high schools received AYP recognition.

This year, North Moore High School met 11 out of 13 target goals. Pinecrest High School met nine out of 19, and Union Pines High School met 12 out of 17.

Pinckney Academy, the county's alternative school, also did not make AYP

Three of the schools that did not make AYP - Vass-Lakeview Elementary, West End Elementary and West Pine Elementary - missed the federal recognition by one target goal.

The State Board of Education is expected to approve the results Aug 4.

'On Right Path'

Superintendent Susan Purser said Tuesday that AYP is only one small component utilized in assessing academic growth for the school system.

"Every year, I look at the [AYP] results and what's going on in the classroom," she said. "When I get the opportunity of pairing those two together, I would say that we are on the right path."

Purser said that schools maintained their test scores this year, despite several variables that could have contributed to poorer results.

"Our teachers are honoring our students," she said. "Given the introduction of additional instructional strategies and the reduction in resources [from budget cuts], I applaud our teachers in their ability to sustain success."

School system officials point to a sharp increase in North Carolina's target goals for student proficiency as the main reason most schools did not make AYP this year.

Last year, 12 out of 22 schools made their AYP goals.

"We are moving rapidly toward 2014, so consequently, the watermarks keep moving up," Purser said.

Since NCLB went into effect in 2001, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction has raised the state's increments of proficiency every three years in steps toward meeting the target goal of having 100 percent of students in public school performing at grade level by 2014.

Last year, the proficiency benchmark for reading was 43.2 percent of students performing at or above grade level and 77.2 percent in math. This year, that benchmark was raised to 71.6 percent for reading and 88.6 percent in math.

Purser said she and her staff use AYP data on subgroups to assess growth, but they do not see the "yes" or "no" distinction of AYP as an effective measure of a school's academic progress.

"Our focus is not about chasing a test score," she said. "It's about looking more completely. Test data is important because it does provide us some information, but we've got to put it within the context of that's how the children performed on this single day on this test."

'Right Choice'

AYP status is given to schools that are able to meet 100 percent of their target growth goals for the year. Growth goals are determined at each school based on the demographics of a student population.

Each goal represents a subgroup of students that is based on factors such as race, socioeconomic status, disabilities and proficiency of the English language.

All students in each group must perform at or above the standard of proficiency determined by DPI in order for a school to make AYP.

Purser said that schools with less diverse demographics and more students from one particular socioeconomic background have an easier time meeting AYP expectations because there are fewer target goals to reach.

"When you look at this methodology, it's an all-or-nothing, and [AYP] is easier to address when you've got fewer targets, meaning that you've got a homogenous population," she said.

End-of-grade tests, along with student attendance, determine AYP status for grades three through eight, and performance on end of course tests for Algebra I and English I, along with the 10th grade writing test and a school's graduation rate, distinguish high schools for the recognition.

Drew Maerz, director of educational assessment, said Elise Middle School's scores exemplify how AYP status can skew the perception of a school's progress.

Elise Middle made AYP last year, with 77.5 percent of students performing at grade level, which allowed the school to meet all 21 of its target goals for the year. The school had the same percentage of students at grade level this year, but the school only met 15 out of those 21 goals and did not make AYP because the state raised the bar for proficiency.

"Elise went from 21 out of 21 to 15 out of 21 because all of a sudden, in all their math measures, where we might have had 80 percent proficient, that's now not good enough," Maerz said.

Purser said the "Growing to Greatness" model, which the school system officially implemented this past year, was developed so that the system can assess schools' progress in educating the whole student, not just one's aptitude on standardized tests.

She referenced Robert Frost's poem "The Road Less Traveled," which was read as the moment of inspiration for the Moore County Board of Education's meeting Monday.

"We're at this point," she said. "We can choose the road that teaches our kids how to bubble answers, which is not realistic to life, or we can take them down a road of developing those engaging experiences so that it translates into life. We have made a choice, and it's the right choice for our children."

Contact Hannah Sharpe at hannah@thepilot.com.