District to get national and international accreditation is one of Kentucky’s 13 low performers????

Here’s a great education puzzle.

The Campbell County Public Schools are about to get accreditation from both AdvancED and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

That will make the district both nationally and internationally recognized.

However, just a week ago it was announced that Campbell County is one of the 13 long-time low-performing school districts under NCLB that will get extra help from the Kentucky Department of Education!!!

So, what is going on?

Campbell County failed NCLB since the law was enacted for performance of students with learning disabilities. It failed even when required proficiency rates were low. It still failed to make the requirement even though the “Safe Harbor” loophole in NCLB allows a district to be scored as making Adequate Yearly Progress with these challenging students merely by reducing the percentage of those students not considered to be proficient by just 10 percent each year.

For example, in 2009, 40.93 percent of the district’s learning disabled students were proficient in math, so 100 minus that figure, or 59.07 percent were not proficient. If the district had raised the proficiency rate by 5.907 points, it would have made AYP in math for learning disabled students in 2010.

Is it possible to achieve a 46.84 percent proficiency rate in math with these challenging students?

Well, the nearby Boone County School District, also in Northern Kentucky, achieved a 55.03 percent math proficiency rate with its learning disabled students in 2010.

I guess learning disabled kids don’t count with national and international accrediting organizations.