More Iowa City schools run afoul of education law

IOWA CITY – A few more schools in the Iowa City school district have been labeled  “in need of assistance” under a federal education law.

Those schools will have to join other district schools already on the list in taking steps to try to improve test scores, but whether there will be long-term consequences remains to be seen because the Obama administration wants to reform the law, known as No Child Left Behind.

The law requires schools to test students and meet state-established goals showing what is defined as adequate yearly progress.

Based on test scores from last school year, Coralville Central Elementary School has been labeled a “school in need of assistance,” or SINA, for reading and math. Also receiving new SINA designations were Lemme Elementary (reading and math) and Roosevelt Elementary (reading).

Six other elementary schools named last year remained on the list; Roosevelt was again listed for math. The district also was again named a district in need of assistance for reading and math.

Hills Elementary was removed from the SINA list for improving its reading scores.

All of the district's secondary schools are labeled in need of assistance, but they do not receive federal funds for schools with a lot of low-income students, so they are not subject to sanctions. SINA-designated Penn, Lemme and Van Allen elementary schools also are exempt.

The district must allow students at schools subject to sanctions to transfer to a non-SINA school, if available. The open schools are Garner, Horn, Lincoln and Shimek.

The district will not provide busing to any new SINA transfer request, although students were were bused in previous years will continue to get transportation. It instead plans to put more of that pot of money toward tutoring, Assistant Superintendent Ann Feldmann said.

The SINA designations do not come until shortly before the school year, which starts in Iowa City Aug. 18. Parents received letters last week about the transfer options.

Special reading and math programs also are implemented in the schools. Tutoring is provided at schools that have been on the list at least two years.

Many of the SINA designations result from subgroups of students – including some minorities, special education and those from low-income families – not meeting goals on test scores.

Pam Ehly, the district's director of instruction, said Iowa City school district students overall continue to perform well above the national average on standardized tests, and those students who are not proficient typically improve with time.

“As students stay in the system, they get better,” she said.

District officials have predicted that more and more schools would be labeled as in need of assistance. The standards keep rising, and the law calls for 100 percent of students to be proficient by 2014.

That goal has been criticized as impossible to meet by many educators and a growing number of lawmakers.

The Obama administration has proposed reforming the law, although Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said in a news release this week that there is “no clear path to a bipartisan bill in Congress.”

In light of that, the administration announced it would let states apply for waivers from key parts of the law. Specifics aren't coming until September, but the Washington Post reported that Education Secretary Arne Duncan said exemptions would most likely go to states that are aggressively reforming the worst-performing schools and creating tougher academic standards and teacher evaluation systems.

Iowa is interested in the waiver process but needs to see more details before deciding what to do, said Staci Hupp, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Education.

Gov. Terry Branstad has called for education reform in Iowa, including higher academic standards. Last month he hosted a two-day education summit that included Duncan as the keynote speaker.

Last year, 24.9 percent of the Iowa's public schools and 7.5 percent of public school districts were designated in need of assistance, including most of the largest districts, according to the Iowa Department of Education. Those numbers were up from 20.3 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively, the year before.