Fed. List Masks School Progress

The number of Cambridge Public Schools on the federal watch list increased this year, meaning that the schools have not made progress in raising some test scores and closing achievement gaps, according to data released this week by the Massachusetts Department of Education.

But even as several Cambridge schools slipped to worse designations, many actually improved in making adequte yearly progress when compared to the past. It is only because some schools did not make progress in areas where they have performed weakly in previous years—and because schools remain on the federal watch list unless they make adequate progress for two consecutive years—that this year’s classifications for the Cambridge schools were lower despite the uptick in the number of schools making adequate yearly progress. 

The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act mandates that schools meet annual benchmarks in boosting overall scores and closing gaps among the eight subgroups that it delineates. These subgroups include five races and low-income students. This annual progress is measured on English and math tests.

Each school is thus measured on four indicators—overall improvement for English, subgroup improvement for English, overall improvement for math, and subgroup improvement for math. A school that fails to make progress in any one of these four areas is placed on the federal watch list.

Schools that fail to make adequate progress for two consecutive years in any one of these four areas are tagged as “needing improvement,” meaning that parents must be given the option of sending their child to other schools in the district.

After four consecutive years of failing to make progress in one area, schools are moved to “corrective action,” and can be required to make changes in staffing and curriculum. After five years of failing to make progress, schools are designated as needing “restructuring,” and can be taken over by the state.

The Cambridge schools on the watch list this year are Amigos, Graham and Parks, Kennedy-Longfellow, King, King Open, Morse, Peabody, Tobin, and Cambridge Rindge and Latin. The Baldwin School was on the list last year but was removed because of its progress on closing its math subgroup gaps.

The Amigos School remains on the list due to its English subgroups. This year the school improved, making adequate progress in all four areas. It will be removed from the watch list if it maintains similar progress next year.

Graham and Parks joined the watch list this year for not making adequate progress in subgroup English. It showed no change in indicators from last year—then as now, the school failed only in English subgroups.

The Kennedy-Longfellow School was designated as needing “corrective action” because it failed to make progress in subgroup math, but posted strong gains otherwise. In 2005 it failed in all four indicators, and this year passed subgroup and overall English and overall math.

The King School was tagged as needing improvement because it failed to make progress in overall math. The school, which does not release subgroup data, showed no change, making progress in English but not in math.

The King Open School was designated as “corrective action” because of lack of progress on overall math. Still, the school improved from last year, going from failing all four indicators to passing two—overall and subgroup English.

The Morse School slipped to an improvement designation for overall English and a corrective action designation for subgroup math. Despite these setbacks, the school made slight progress this year, going from not meeting all four progress indicators to meeting the one in overall math.

Like last year’s, the Peabody School was designated as needing improvement in math subgroups. But it was the only school that regressed this year. Last year, it made progress on all four indicators, but failed to do so this year in both math indicators.

The Tobin School, which retained its “restructuring” designation on math, was also identified as needing improvement on its overall English scores. Its record from last year to this year was mixed, however, as it worsened in its English subgroup scores but improved in overall and subgroup math.

Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, the system’s only high school, kept its “needing improvement” status due to the English and math subgroups. It did, however, post strong gains—last year it made adequate yearly progress only in overall English, but did so this year on all four indicators.

School officials hailed the figures, noting that by summing the indicators across its 13 schools, adequate progress was made in 32 instances this year compared to 23 last year.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.