School Choice Comes to District 200

All District 200 parents currently have "school choice" - at least, among the public schools within District 200.  The District allows "permissive transfer" among schools at a parent's election, with the superintendent's permission, although it does not publicize this policy.  However, the policy is restricted; space must be available at the school to which the student is to transfer, and parents must provide their own transportation to get the child to school. 

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, however, this policy is broadening (not at the District's choice).  This year parents at Johnson School are entitled to transfer their students to another school - the District has selected Bower and Wiesbrook as alternatives - and the District must pay for transportation.  That's because Johnson School in Warrenville has failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for 2 years running under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).  AYP looks at whether enough students in each ethnic and socioeconomic "subgroup" at a school meet minimum state academic standards on tests.  This year, 85% of students in each subgroup must meet minimum standards, up from 77.5% last year.  (Because of technicalities, the actual percentage requirement is slightly lower - last year 71.8% was sufficient for one subgroup.)  In Johnson's case, too many "SES" (low income) and "LEP" (limited English proficiency - non English fluent) students failed to meet the minimum state standards.

The District complains that it must pay the cost of busing the 28 students who chose to move to new schools, even though 26 of those students did meet minimum state standards (according to the District - individual student records are protected from disclosure under state and federal law).  It did not specify a cost, however.

I'm sometimes accused of only criticizing District activities.  This may be because I focus on issues that need to be publicized that aren't getting attention.  The District works very hard to put out as much positive press as possible, so it tends to be the negative stories that fall to me to report.  But in this case I will give credit to the District:  staff have worked hard to increase subgroup test scores, and those scores have improved measurably.  However, the NCLB minimum increased faster, so the District fell behind despite overall rising scores among its disadvantaged student groups.  There are other valid criticisms of the NCLB methodology too:  it does not address student mobility - the students tested may not have been enrolled previously in District 200 schools, so they are tested on what they did (or didn't) learn at their prior schools.  It's also not clear to me whether moving students within the District would have a significant impact, although I will not rule out the possibility altogether. 

So although I strongly support measurable academic standards determined through uniform testing, I don't support federal intervention in local schools in general, and I agree (in part) with the District's assessment that it is not the most effective way to address the perceived problem.  But there's more to this story, which I will discuss in a subsequent post.