San Luis school rated as failing in AZ Learns

  One Yuma County school turned up on the "failing to meet academic standards" category of a state school performance evaluation.

  San Luis Middle School in the Gadsden Elementary District was labeled as failing in Arizona Learns (AZ Learns). The report is a set of data compiled by the Arizona Department of Education that was released by Superintendent Tom Horne and measures the performance of 1,875 schools.

  Calls from The Sun to Gadsden Superintendent Ray Aguilera and to San Luis Middle School were not immediately returned Wednesday.

  Under the state's assessment system, there are six different ranks. Starting with the top measurement they are excelling, highly performing, performing plus, performing or failing to meet academic standards, according to the release.

  No other school in Yuma County was ranked as failing, and no school in the county ranked as excelling.

  Three schools were listed as highly performing: Ronald Reagan and Mesquite elementary schools in the Crane Elementary School District and Alice Byrne Elementary School in Yuma Elementary School District 1. 

  Six schools were ranked as underperforming: Gadsden and Ed Pastor elementary schools in the Gadsden districts, Tierra del Sol in the Somerton Elementary School  District, Wellton Elementary School, and Fourth Avenue Junior High and Ron Watson Elementary School in District 1.

  Criteria for determining the areas of improvement are the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS); Measure of Academic Progress, a state calculation that traces the number of students passing AIMS; graduation and dropout rates; Arizona English Language Learners Assessment (AZELLA) results, which is for those not yet fluent in English; and the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report.

  From 2007 to 2008, Arizona schools have remained statistically consistent in their performance on the AZ Learns achievement profiles, Horne said in the news release.

  Horne added that AZ Learns is the best way to measure how a school is performing from one year to the next.

  AYP is a benchmark set by the federal 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. It is based on standardized testing in multiple disciplines, in multiple grades, across different subgroups, in which all have to receive a positive result. A negative result in any category means the entire school does not make AYP.

  At schools that are rated three years in a row as failing, the state can intervene by removing principals and making curriculum changes.

  The 2007-08 year was the first in which San Luis Middle School was rated as failing.

  The majority of schools in the state met or exceeded state benchmarks, the release said. The number of schools in each category for 2008 were 321 at excelling, 250 highly performing, 392 performing plus, 734 performing, 158 underperforming. and 20 failing.

  The Arizona accountability system is far superior to the federal NCLB, Horne noted. NCLB has 253 categories and if a school performs spectacularly on 252 and fails one, the whole school fails. By contrast, the state system is a comprehensive and accurate assessment tool, Horne added.

  Those seeking to attract business to Arizona can refer to the 571 highly performing and excelling schools, which shows they can compete in national test results with any school in a state a business is considering relocating from, Horne stressed.

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William Roller can be reached at
wroller@yumasun.com or 539-6858.