WSFA.com: News Weather and Sports for Montgomery, AL.Editorial: Alabama's AYP grade

Editorial: Alabama's AYP grade

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By Mark Wilder - email

  • Editorials

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  • Tuesday, May 1 2012 7:20 PM EDT2012-05-01 23:20:35 GMT
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  • Friday, April 20 2012 7:20 PM EDT2012-04-20 23:20:42 GMT
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  • Wednesday, April 18 2012 7:27 PM EDT2012-04-18 23:27:31 GMT
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MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) -

On Monday Alabama  schools' Adequate Yearly Progress report came out.  49 state school systems including 377 schools did not make AYP this year.

While many people agree that AYP has brought improvement to schools, some have criticized the program as rigid and unrealistic.  Like it or not, it is in place and will be until at least 2014.

It is only one type of report card and it is "pass or fail" with nothing in between.  We don't grade our students solely on pass or fail and we shouldn't grade our schools solely that way either.

Many improvements have been made in the last year, especially in River Region schools.  We should celebrate those successes and build on them.

More concerning is that when schools don't meet AYP goals they will have to apply federal funds to the underachieving segments or programs.  That's fine, but how do we fund the segments and programs from which those federal dollars are taken?

It always comes back to the same issue.  If we can't achieve our education goals with current resources, we need to either spend more money on education, or re-design our school to be more efficient.

Because in a "pass or fail" world, pass is the only acceptable option.

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