Lubbock, Frenship, & Lubbock-Cooper ISDs Fail to Meet AYP Standards

Schools across the state, including Lubbock ISD, continue to miss federal standards.

Lubbock ISD as a whole missed the Adequate Yearly Progress standards, due to reading performance, mathematics performance, and graduation rate, according to the Texas Education Agency.

The TEA ranks districts and schools through improvement categories called stages. If a school or district that receives Title I federal funds fails to meet AYP for two or more years for the same indicators, it moves into the School Improvement Program stages.

Stage 1 requires school officials to approve a campus improvement plan, and give students the option of transferring to another school. Once a school reaches Stage 5, the school or district has missed AYP for the same indicator for six or more years, and must implement a major restructuring. The required intervention grows with each stage.

Lubbock ISD has been ranked as Stage 3 overall.

Coronado High School missed AYP due to mathematics performance, and has reached Stage 2 requirements. Monterey High School missed AYP due to mathematics, and is at Stage 1, and Lubbock High School missed AYP due to mathematics, and is now at Stage 3.

The District’s low performer is Estacado High School, which missed AYP due to reading, mathematics, and graduation rate. They are now at Stage 5.

Evans and Hutchinson Middle Schools met AYP standards, as did the Margaret Talkington School for Young Women Leaders.

Lubbock-Cooper ISD missed AYP as well, due to reading performance and mathematics. They are now at Stage 1. Lubbock-Cooper High School missed AYP due to mathematics performance, but have not reached an intervention stage as of yet.

Frenship ISD missed AYP standards as well, but is not at an intervention stage. Frenship High School missed AYP due to mathematics performance, but has not reached an intervention stage either.

Harmony Science Academy of Lubbock missed AYP due to reading and math performance, but are not at an intervention stage.

Rise Academy met the AYP requirements.

The Texas Education Agency says that 56 percent of all schools in the state failed to meet the AYP standards.

This year’s evaluations come from performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS test for 10^th graders, and the STAAR test for students in 3^rd through 8^th grade.

Students will now take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, but STAAR testing standards are not set for elementary and middle schools as of yet, so this year’s test was a benchmark. The STAAR scores for the more rigorous test have been translated to a TAKS score.

Texas Association of Business President and CEO Bill Hammond weighed in on the report, saying “The whole idea of improving education is to ensure that our kids are ready to make it in the real world and that they have the skills needed to get a good job.”

“Right now, we know that schools aren’t meeting the demand of preparing graduates for college or careers…Changing or weakening our accountability system now won’t help our students and will hurt our education system in the long run,” Hammond continued.

Information on AYP results by district is available here.