Subgroup Graduation Rates Keep Novi Schools from Making AYP

Today the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) released its school report cards, which includes the list of schools meeting state standards through Adequate Yearly Progress.

was the only Novi school that did not make AYP because its three subgroups—African Americans, economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities—did not meet the standards for graduation rates at 80 percent. This was the first year that AYP included graduation rates for all students in its calculations.

"Many of the students who are at Novi High School who are not on track to graduate and who don't graduate in four years are students who moved to Novi High School with a transient educational background," said Superintendent Dr. Steve Matthews. "They come to us deficient in credits, and we do everything we can to get them ready to graduate, but some of those students are not going to graduate in four years."

All of Novi's other schools made AYP, but because the high school did not, the overall does not make AYP.

In the past, districts only needed to meet AYP targets at one of three levels - elementary, middle and high school. Now, they are required to meet them at all three.

Matthews pointed out that Novi is still high achieving. In May, as one of the best in the country. Novi showed this year, ranking it in the top five in the county and No. 1 in science.

Matthews also said that graduation rates for the subgroups are on an upward trend.

"We believe in accountability. We are transparent as we can be with all of our data, but when the state sets arbitrary targets and doesn't reward positive trends in your data, it's somewhat disconcerting to us because we don't think they're recognizing the efforts that we've made," he said.

Matthews said the district is actively working to raise graduation rates for those groups.

In a new program called Operation Graduation, each student gets a credit audit at the beginning of every high school year to see who is making progress toward graduation.

An academic advisory program was also started last year, in which each high school administrator is assigned a group of 15 students who are struggling to meet with each week. The administrators review the assignments the students had that week in class and their test scores, monitor their performance, and help them develop a plan for how to do their homework.

Novi also added two new administrative positions to aid with student growth last year. Director of Student Growth and Accountability Nick Kalakailo is responsible for collecting and sharing assessment data from teachers across the district and evaluating teachers and administrators. Title I/ESL Coordinator/Facilitator Alice Smith works with teachers to improve instructional practice with Novi's growing population of economically disadvantaged and ESL students.

"With all those types of support, we believe that we'll continue to increase the graduation rate," Matthews said.

Changes to AYP

Last year was because a few of the students in its subgroups didn't participate.

A surprising list of southeast Michigan school districts have gone from a passing AYP designation a year ago to failing today. In total, 262 districts (48 percent) statewide did not make AYP, compared to 37 (6.7 percent) last year. At the school building level, 82 percent of schools made AYP across the state, compared to 79 percent last year.

The increase of schools not making AYP is due in part to the addition of graduation rates for subgroups and the now used on the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) and MME (Michigan Merit Exam) tests.

Because of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) , the state in 2012-2013 will no longer be measuring districts based on AYP. Starting next year, school districts will receive accountability scorecards that use five different colors to recognize varying levels of achievement and accountability for each school and district.

Matthews said Novi does not support the waiver and sent its feedback to the state in the spring when it requested thoughts from the school districts.

"The feedback we provided back in the spring is that we did not believe the waiver would accurately reflect the performance of a high-achieving school district," Matthews said. "Clearly our message did not win out because the waiver was submitted as written."

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