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The Texas Education Agency released its Adequate Yearly Progress report for 2012 a bit ago, and DISD and about three-quarters of its individual campuses missed the mark, just as they did last year, and the year before, and the year before.
Much of that can be attributed to tougher standards. As DISD noted in the press release it just sent out, the percentage of kids who need to pass math and reading tests in order to meet the federally mandated measure has jumped over the past four years, up 8 percent in math to 83 percent and up 7 percent in reading to 87 percent.
But that doesn’t explain away DISD’s percentages, which stayed about the same overall but decreased for minority, economically disadvantaged, and special education students.
“We are all for accountability and showing improvement in student performance,” said Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles in the press release. “At the same time, we are for reasonable expectations and fair evaluations. Our Destination 2020 plan is designed to prepare all students to be college and career-ready and there are a number of measurements other than AYP that should be taken into consideration as to how our schools and our students perform.”
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If it makes you feel better — though maybe it should make you feel worse — DISD is not alone. In fact, it’s not even in the minority anymore. This was the first year in which the majority of districts in Texas failed to meet AYP.
If you’re curious, you can poke around to find school-by-school and district-by-district breakdowns here.
