Seventy-three percent of Vermont schools failed to meet targets set under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Only 81 schools were judged up to par. Of the 214 schools that didn’t hit the benchmarks, 21 were new.
NCLB requires states to set “adequate yearly progress” requirements for schools. The scores in Vermont are primarily based on the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP), which gauge math and reading skills.
The Department of Education released the testing results Tuesday, which showed that only 81 schools had made “adequate progress” in 2013.
Armando Vilaseca, the Secretary of Education, said more than half of the schools met the reading targets, but math scores lagged. Scores among low-income students on the free or reduced lunch program were also low, according to Vilaseca.
In a statement, Vilaseca said, “We feel it’s important to celebrate the good work that the schools are doing, but also to recognize that we need to figure out how to close these achievement gaps.”
Starting in 2015, the state will be using a different test to assess schools’ progress — it will transition from NECAP to the Smarter Balanced Assessment System, which is also being adopted in 28 other states.
