Kane County braces for rise in school failure

Kane County education officials expect the number of area schools designated as failing by the No Child Left Behind law to nearly triple in 2009.

Doug Johnson, superintendent of the Kane County Regional Office of Education, delivered the news to county board members Monday.

In order to make the list of failing schools, a certain number of students, either in a subgroup or overall, must fail standardized tests in areas such as math or reading. The percentage of students who must pass those exams increases every year. A school that misses the benchmark (Adequate Yearly Progress) for two years in a row is designated as failing.

There are 24 schools in Kane County labeled as failing right now, Johnson said. There are many more schools that will fall into that category should they fail to meet Adequate Yearly Progress for a second year in 2009. That seems a likely outcome as the percentage of students required to pass the standardized exams will increase by an additional 7 percent. Johnson said at that point he expects a about 70 Kane County schools will be failing by NCLB standards.

The most likely penalty for staying on the failing list is a restructuring of a school's organization and curriculum by outside education experts, Johnson said. That might include the firing of some current staff.

Johnson said even that sort of restructuring tends to offer few specific answers about how to get students who aren't passing the exams to suddenly achieve more than they ever have.

"Usually the message is, 'We don't have any answers for that, but we want you to come up with a bunch of new ways to do it yourself,' " Johnson said in an interview.

Despite the failing labels, Johnson said Kane County schools are showing test scores that are better than ever. The main problem are exams that special education and English language learners have no reasonable chance of passing, he added.

Come the 2013-2014 school year, 100 percent of students at all schools must pass the tests to avoid the failing label.

"I'm not sure that has ever happened in the history of the world," Johnson said.