Nearly 400 test scores not counted in subgroups by area schools

Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education excluded test scores of 385 students, most of them minorities, in 19 Southeast Missouri school districts in the 2003-2004 academic year in determining whether those schools made adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But with the federal government's approval, schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students nationwide when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.

Education officials in each state have decided when a group is too small to count. As a result, schools can now ignore racial breakdowns even when they have 30, 40 or even 50 students of a given race in the testing population.

In Missouri, the tests of more than 24,000 minority students aren't being counted as groups. Missouri schools have federal permission not to break out scores for any ethnic group with fewer than 30 students in the testing population.

Franklin Elementary School in Cape Girardeau removed 29 black and four Hispanic students' test scores from racial and ethnic subgroups. In all, the school excluded 34 percent of 97 third- and fourth-graders tested.

Under the federal law, schools and subgroups of students within each school must meet proficiency benchmarks on math and communication arts standardized tests in order to avoid penalties such as paying for students to transfer to better performing schools within a district.

A school's student body as a whole can meet academic standards, but the school can fail to make the grade as a result of poor test scores by a subgroup of students.

Franklin principal Rhonda Dunham said schools not counting certain scores aren't trying to ignore the academic needs of minority students. She said school district administrators and principals look at every test score, even the ones excluded in terms of adequate yearly progress.

"You can't exclude any of them because you want them all to be successful," Dunham said.

In the Kansas City area, the data show Hispanic children's scores at nearly 60 percent of the schools weren't separately evaluated while black students' performance wasn't broken out at nearly a quarter of the schools.

Dozens of groups, including the National School Boards Association and the NAACP, are lobbying Congress to close the federal law's loopholes. They charge that the exemptions allow school districts to disregard subgroup scores of minority and special needs students.

"This is an unethical means for masking the true needs of minority children by hiding the state's poor test scores," said Nicole Francis-Williams, the interim national director of education at the NAACP office in Washington, D.C.

No Child Left Behind has created an almost impossible situation, said Dr. Bert Schulte, deputy commissioner at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

"Not counting the scores because there's 29 students is neglectful, but counting a subgroup that is too small to be a reliable measure is questionable as well."

DESE spokesman Jim Morris said, there are valuable statistical reasons to have some minimum group size. Schools, he said, don't want to be punished for the poor test scores of a few students.

In the past, students weren't tested every year in math and communication arts. This spring schools are starting annual tests for students in third through eighth grades.

That means many more students are going to be tested and more schools should have subgroups larger than 30 students, Morris said.

"I think it increases the likelihood that more schools will be held accountable this year for more subgroups."

At the Jackson Middle School, 24 students' Missouri Assessment Program test scores weren't included in adequate-yearly-progress calculations. The excluded groups included 15 black students, five Hispanic and four Asian students.

Combined, they accounted for 3.2 percent of the students tested at the middle school.

Sam Duncan, who helps coordinate MAP testing for the Jackson School District, said school districts simply are following orders from state education officials. "We never made any of the rules," he said.

But Duncan said the school district wants to improve all students' test scores.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, ext. 123

The Associated Press contributed to this story.