Chatham Fails to Meet No Child Left Behind Benchmarks

Assistant Superintendent Michael LaSusa said Monday the School District of the Chathams failed to meet its testing benchmarks under No Child Left Behind.

Two schools in Chatham failed to meet their benchmarks for progress in test results. failed in their Language Arts testing for special education students, and failed to meet benchmarks in both Language Arts and Math testing for special education and Hispanic students.

"The cornerstone of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is that every type of student in every school in the United States is tested and must make ... Adequate Yearly Progress, called AYP," LaSusa said.

Testing in New Jersey is done in grades 3 through 8 and again in grade 11, LaSusa said. If any subgroup of at least 30 students in a school does not make AYP, the school is deemed as failing.

In Chatham, the subgroups of students include while/Caucasian students, special education students, Hispanic students and Asian/Pacific students, depending on the school.

To pass, If any subgroup of students in a school falls below the target determined by No Child Left Behind, the school fails to pass.

NCLB requires all schools to meet 100 percent AYP no later than 2014-15, which LaSusa said is not a realistic goal for Chatham to meet.

While the news seems daunting, LaSusa said numerous districts throughout the state and country have at least one failing school, as Chatham does. Among K-12 J-level districts in New Jersey, only one district—Glen Rock—will meet AYP this year. These include Millburn, Mountain Lakes, Bernards and Ridgewood.

Among the 105 K-12 districts in New Jersey with enrollment of 3,500 students or more, all of them have at least one school that will not meet AYP this year, including Princeton, Summit, Livingston and Westfield.

"What's happening now in the state of New Jerey is that there's this kind of avalanche of schools or district [that] did not make headway. ... We have some rigorous testing in New Jersey, and the cut numbers are very high," LaSusa said.

According to LaSusa, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has stated that at least 80 percent of U.S. schools will fail to meet NCLB requirements.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that standardized tests were given to students in grades 3 through 9. This was a misstatement within the presentation. Standardized tests in New Jersey are given to grades 3 through 8 and then again typically at grade 11. Chatham Patch sincerely apologizes to our readers for this error.