Special ed test scores could hurt schools

Another 200 schools could face scrutiny next year over the test scores of their special education students, due to a technical change in the way the federal No Child Left Behind Act is applied in New Jersey.

The change is buried in the arcane rules that determine whether a school meets achievement requirements set by the law. The law sets ever-increasing standards for the percentage of students in a given school -- and individual groups of students within that school -- passing reading and math tests.

Schools that fail to meet the standards six years running face sanctions, from sacked administrators to major overhauls in the way the school does business. Last year, more than 860 New Jersey schools fell short in one category or another.

The change that will affect schools is focused on individual categories, such as special education. If a school has enough students in that area, it must show improvement among those students' test scores.

The state recently amended its policies to set the required minimum for every category at 30 students. Previously, the minimums were 35 in special education and 20 in all others, but the federal government demanded a uniform number for all categories.

Other states vary widely on what their minimums are -- from as low as five students to 100 in some cases -- but state officials said they thought 30 was a fair balance when considering that the state also typically bundles scores across three grades.

"We didn't want a number that was too small to make good decisions about a school," said Barbara Gantwerk, an assistant commissioner of education. "The number 30 was what we thought was statistically appropriate for making those decisions."

The scrutiny will come next year based on this year's test scores, and the overall impact could be significant, according to a department analysis of past enrollments.

Most significantly, the analysis found that lowering the minimum for special ed students to 30 could mean about 1,230 of the state's 2,300 schools would need to meet the achievement requirements for those students, up from about 1,000 schools last year.

However, raising the minimum for other categories would have the opposite effect. For instance, the number of schools needing to meet achievement goals for their Hispanic students could fall from 1,000 to about 750 if enrollments stayed roughly the same.

Reaction to the changes was mixed, with advocates cheering the lower minimum for special ed students but lamenting the increase for the other categories.

"As we have seen too often, it is only this reporting that makes schools buckle down for these smaller populations," said Diana Autin, co-director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network.

Some school leaders, meanwhile, said the change should generally help schools from being labeled as underperforming due to only a small number of kids.

"There is not a teacher or administrator who doesn't want every child to succeed, but with a small (minimum), it unfairly categorized schools for not making adequate progress," said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the state's school boards association. "It comes down to a matter of accuracy."