FeedsSchool results are in
When report cards were released to Michigan schools earlier this week, mixed results were received by the public school districts and charter schools that serve Inkster students.
The reports show that an overwhelming number of elementary schools have achieved Adequate Yearly progress, or AYP, as determined by the No Child Left Behind law. The results also show modest improvements at the middle school level, and some struggles at the most of the high schools in the immediate area.
The results often are determine by a subgroup of students that did not perform well on standardized test, though there are many reasons schools can be tagged as a non-progressive school.
High schools challenged
Of the five high schools that serve Inkster teens – Inkster High School, Robichaud High School, Wayne Memorial High, Cherry Hill High School for the Performing Arts, and the Academy of Inkster – only Cherry Hill achieved AYP, according to the results released by the state.
Steven Mostyn, the principal of Cherry Hill, said he believes a number of factors helped students during the 2006 and 2007 year and that has led the district to progress in both 2007 and 2008.
“We have many programs here, and the staff and the students come in here in the morning motivated to learn,” he said. “From the beginning, our school was set up as a professional learning environment.”
Mostyn cited the fact that students can receive free tutoring for two hours every day after school to get help in subjects that they may need additional help with, and that tutoring is offered through the title one program as part of the reason the district has been able to progress. He also said parental involvement has gone up at the school.
Inkster High School, which is part of the Inkster Public School District; Robichaud High School, which is part of Westwood; Wayne Memorial, which is part of the Wayne-Westland district, and the Academy of Inkster, which is a charter school failed to meet AYP for the second consecutive year.
Glen Taylor, the state and federal program director of Westwood Schools, said his district has acted to turn the tide on high school progress measurements, but that the results of those efforts may not be immediately realized.
“We’ve acted aggressively at the high school,” he said. “We’ve implemented a re-culturing effort at the secondary level that the students and staff understand.”
He said the parameters of that effort include working with Tom Watkins, the former state superintendent of public instruction to provide assistance to the high school administration, and a partnership with the University of Michigan that will benefit the staff and students.
Thomas Maridada, the superintendent of Inkster Schools, did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Young students benefit
A higher point in the report cards lies with the younger students.
There are currently eight elementary schools – five of which are operated by the Inkster Public School District, Westwood Community Schools, and Wayne-Westland Schools and three charter schools – that received report cards, and of those only one failed to progress, according to the report cards.
The Meek-Milton lower elementary achieved AYP for a second year in a row, but its higher elementary school, Baylor-Woodson, did not meet requirements this year.
Hicks School, which is located in Inkster but is part of the 25,000-student Wayne-Westland District, progressed again in 2008.
Daly School and Thorne School – both of which are part of the Westwood Community School District – both met AYP expectations.
Of the charter schools – Discovery Arts and Technology, Gaudior, and Thomas Gist – all met AYP.
Taylor said one reason younger students seem to fare better regarding the report cards is that they are immersed in a system early on.
“We don’t have the transient population that you have when you get to the middle school and the high school, so they’ve been in one system,” he said. “Once the students are older, we see a lot of students that were in a different system.”
Pre-teens a mixed bag
By comparison, teens did not see the level of progress enjoyed by their younger counterparts. Blanchette School, which is part of the Inkster School District, and Tomlinson School, which is part of Westwood, did not make AYP this year, though both did last year.
