Jefferson County busing plan “BUS-ted” NCLB again!

It’s no surprise. The Jefferson County Public School District’s chaotic busing plan – supposedly justified by needs for diversity – thoroughly trashed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability for the district’s elementary schools. Is this the real reason educators in Jefferson County continue to defend this child- and parent-hostile mess?

Here are some of the gruesome statistics for the district’s 89 standard configuration (Primary to Grade 5) elementary schools:

• THEN: In 2008 a total of 21 Jefferson County elementary schools were in NCLB improvement categories ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 5. Another five schools lacked enough high needs students to be considered federal Title 1 schools, so they were not held accountable. However, these five schools also failed to make the NCLB targets.

• NOW: In 2010, only 10 elementary schools face consequences in the latest NCLB report. That is true even though NCLB standards got tougher during the past two years. In the new report, the non-Title 1 schools can also face state-level sanctions, but few did in Jefferson County.

Thus, in 2008 there were 26 Jefferson County elementary schools that would face sanctions, then in 2010, with the standards raised, only 10 schools faced sanctions?

Does that sound credible?

Consider this:

• In 2010 out of the 89 standard configuration elementary schools in Jefferson County, 67 (that’s 3 out of 4) were “reconfigured” and got excused from all NCLB accountability thanks to busing.

• Of the 67 reconfigured Jefferson County elementary schools in 2010, 56 (that’s 84 percent) actually failed to make overall adequate yearly performance in reading for at least two years in a row. WITHOUT BUSING, THEY SHOULD HAVE FACED CONSEQUENCES.

• Many of the same 56 schools that failed in reading also failed in mathematics.

• Out of the remaining 22 schools that were not reconfigured, 10 faced NLCB consequences. Thus, for those few elementary schools in Jefferson County that were held accountable, nearly half (45 percent) failed to escape NCLB sanctions in 2010.

Any way you slice this, a lot of schools that should be held accountable, were not.



It gets much worse.

• In 2008, four Jefferson County Elementary Schools were in the worst NCLB performance Category – Tier 5. They are:
o Atkinson Elementary
o Hazelwood Elementary
o Maupin Elementary
o Okolona Elementary

These schools all failed consistently for at least six years.

All four schools were classified as reconfigured in 2010 due to busing. That zeroed out all their NCLB accountability.

But, what do you think happened to the academic performance in these schools? Are kids being served well enough that the faculty should be able to avoid all sanctions?

Stay tuned for more on that.

Tech Note:

The data above came from extensive analysis of the 2010 No Child Left Behind reports and spreadsheets in the Kentucky Department of Education’s web site.

Access the entry portal page to all those reports here.