Birmingham Schools Earn 'A' Grade from State

All 13 schools in the are right where they're supposed to be, after all eight elementary schools, two middle schools, two high schools and the received an "A" grade for 2010-11 from the Michigan Department of Education.

The grades were released as part of district's report cards for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which looks at everything from , attendance records and graduation rates. As a district, Birmingham met AYP as well.

"We're always pleased when we're able to demonstrate to people our top-performing students," said Birmingham schools spokeswoman Marcia Wilkinson. "Obviously this is a good thing for the district. But it's an expectation for our schools to make Adequate Yearly Progress."

The full report of schools and grades can be found here.

AYP scores are what the federal government uses to hold schools accountable. They are calculated for all 3,437 public schools in the state using target achievement goals.

Overall, 79 percent of Michigan's public school buildings and 93 percent of school districts made AYP for 2010-11. This is down 7.1 percent from 86 percent of schools and 95 percent of districts who made AYP in 2009-10.

State school officials attributed the overall drop in scores to the increased rigor: federal proficiency targets increased this year and schools had to have a higher percentage of students proficient to be considered as having made AYP.

"We are raising the bar on what they need to know, to also raise AYP simultaneously is very, very difficult," said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education, in a statement released along with the data.

Every school in the state, however, received state accredidation.

“We must continue to set high expectations for our schools so our students are prepared for the competitive global economy,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. “But we need an accurate and honest reflection of where our schools are in preparing our students."

Between the 2009-10 and the 2010-11 school year, targets jumped between 8 percent and 10 percent. For instance, in math, 2010-11 represented the first proficiency target increase since 2006-07; the previous three years retained the same targets.

Ellis said every time the state increases the target by 10 or 12 points, especially in math, there tends to be a group of students on the cusp, that when the scores increase, they just don't make it

The reduction in the percentage of schools meeting AYP can be seen most significantly in high schools, where there was a 21.9 percent decrease in the number of high schools making AYP this year. Alternative schools also had a substantial decrease in the percentage making AYP, from 36.6 percent last year to 17.7 percent this year.

Ellis said the state is awaiting word on whether the federal government will give Michigan a waiver on meeting proficiency targets in the next 10 years as it works on boosting overall academic performance.