Novi High School Gets B on State Report Card, DOE Denies Appeal

The 2011 Michigan Department of Education’s Adequate Yearly Progress reports released this morning show that every school in the Novi Community School District except Novi High School met AYP standards and received an A on their report cards.

Novi High School received a B and did not make AYP for the first time since the AYP assessment was introduced because not enough students in two of Novi's subgroups participated, according to a press release from the district. The subgroups without enough participation were economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities.

Overall, the district met AYP standards.

The AYP assessment is required by the federal government as part of No Child Left Behind. Several factors go into measuring AYP, including MEAP scores for elementary and middle school students and the MME for high school students. The number of students who take the tests and the graduation rate for high schools are also factored into the calculation.

No Child Left Behind requires that at least 95 percent of all students participate for each sub-group that has 30 students.

Assistant Superintendent for Academic Services RJ Webber said in the press release, “Novi High School tested 98.1 percent of our students. In our economically disadvantaged subgroup we invalidated the tests of two students because they used cell phones during breaks between tests, it was this invalidation that caused our number to fall below 95 percent.”

In the press release, Superintendent Dr. Steve Matthews said that by following the rules, participation dropped to 93 percent. Participation was also not met for another Novi subgroup: students with disabilities. 

“We had one special education student who refused to take the test. This one student’s non-participation pushed us below the 95 percent participation rate, to 93.9 percent in that subgroup,” Webber said in the press release.

The district appealed to the Michigan Department of Education, but the appeal was denied.

“We asked the state why we were being punished for following the rules. We were told that the state was going to uphold the letter of the No Child Left Behind law,” Webber said in the press release.

Matthews said, “We were punished because of a technical reading of the rule. Could we have looked the other way? Of course we could have but we did not and we will never do that.”

In the press release, Webber points out that on performance Novi High School remains one of the strongest high schools in the state in graduation rate, college-readiness and ACT performance.

“When the Report Card does not accurately reflect performance, there is a reason to question the validity of the grade,” said Matthews in the press release. “We followed the rules, we were punished. Following the rules, making sure that we do the right thing is important to us. Even though our report card grade will say “B”, I’ll match our high school against any in the state.”

AYP Across  Michigan

Overall, Michigan schools saw a 7.1 percentage point decrease in students making AYP, dropping from 86 percent of schools in 2009-2010 to 79 percent in 2010-2011.

Michigan high school students showed significant declines in the percentage of high schools making AYP, going from 81.9 percent last year to 60 percent this year.

Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the MDE, suggested the drop is the result of increasing proficiency target amid growing academic expectations. She 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.

She said the math targets, for instance, had not increased for three years in a row, giving some students a chance to start to catch up, then they jumped significantly this past year, which put students behind again.

"We are raising the bar on what they need to know, to also raise AYP simultaneously is very, very difficult," she said.

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.

She said that will allow the state to balance yearly progress with the increase in rigor in schools in Michigan are facing as the state adopts Common Core Standards.

"We want to raise the rigor of what students know, rather than lower the bar," she said.

Common Core Standards, essentially means setting specific goals for what students need to know in each subject. For instance, what exactly students should know in each grade/subject to have a clear understanding of it.

This, Ellis said, will better prepare students for college and career paths, make them reading to take the national assessment test, boost ACT scores and give a better understanding of what they are being taught.