Armstromg Elem: Academically Unacceptable

http://www.tea.state.tx.us
click on AEIS Reports and then choose your school or district.

Here's the link on the tea website for 05-06. I would be curious to see how they performed this past year. The results to 06-07 should be made public any day now. If the scores improved this past year, then I would not worry too much. There are a lot of reasons why a school might get a low score, including testing scores. It may have to do with how a particular portion of the school's population performed (white, black, etc.) From glancing at the report above, it looks like the testing scores were pretty low in some cases.

After a rating like that, I bet that a lot of personell was moved around (principal replaced, etc.) That campus also probably got some extra support staff to help improve reading scores, etc.

You could call the TEA or Garland ISD and ask them to explain clearly why that school got the rating and what they have implemented to perform better in the future. Also, ask about the most recent scores to see if there was improvement last year.

Good luck, and way to go for watching out for your child!

A school can get Academically Unacceptable if in one sub-pop a % or children do not pass...that could be 2 kids in some cases...and if those two kids also fall under another sub-pop then that can be a double whammy for a school.

From my experience it is usually your special ed. pop,low income, AA, and Hispanic pops that this occurs. For example one student who is Hispanic can also be in the low income sub-pop.

I know that I am not explaining this as well as it could be...I'm just trying to sum it up some, as it would take me a while to explain all of the ins and outs.

Attendance in a building can hurt the results as well. If you have a student who leaves country for 1 month and then comes back they have missed more than the alloted days for any given school year. They miss out on teaching and have to play catch up, etc. The state uses these absences as well to calculate the results.

In many cases a school is not a a bad school...it is just the numbers didn't add up. Sad, but true.

I work at a school that goes back and forth with exemplary and recognized. Just one or two students can make the difference for us.

On another note...Our society is becoming more and more a mobile society. Kids move in and out every year, making it difficult for schools. Hope this makes sense. If a student has no experience with formal testing the schools have to hope the student came from a school or a district that taught best practices. Otherwise the school has to make up for the TEKS (objectives) the student missed out on. This is not an easy task.

Hope this helps some! :-)

I'm not for sure but I think after a school is rated academically unacceptable then parents have a choice to not send their children to that school and they can choose another school...it's all part of No Child Left Behind.

A school can be rated academically unacceptable if enough students don't pass just 1 section of the TAKS test. It's also based on how many students graduate.

try looking the school up on greatschools.net, they usually give good info.