City schools, system, all make AYP

That means that all four Commerce schools and the school system as a whole are deemed to have met AYP.

Since the summer announcement, schools had the opportunity to re-test students who failed. In the case of CMS, only 45.1 percent of students with disabilities passed the math portion on the first go-round; the state required a 67.5-percent passing rate. CMS appealed because it discovered that another special education student — who passed the test — was not counted by the state as a CMS student.

That, said principal Chuck Bell, would have been enough to gain AYP status - but students who took the re-tests also did exceptionally well.

“The retake successes were significant enough to make it with flying colors,” said Bell. “We would have made it even without the retake successes based on what became known as ‘federal flexibility.’”

That provision, said Bell, allows a school to earn AYP if its only failure was in the special education subgroup, as was the case with CMS.

But Bell was excited about the CMS retest results just the same.

“I’m extremely pleased with the work of our teachers and our students,” he said. “They really went about their work with remediation and retakes. It was a very strategic and well-designed approach to remediation and retakes.”

The standards for meeting AYP increase continually. By 2014, every student in every school is expected to pass the test - including those with disabilities and who do not speak English. Last year, every sub-group had to have a 66.7-percent passing rate in math and 73.3 rate in English/language arts. This year the rates are 75.7 in math and 80 in English/language arts.

“As glorious a goal or objective it is, good goals and objectives are still realistic,” Bell notes, “and that’s (100 percent passing) a little bit outside of realism.”

Bell thinks the federal program will recognize the impossibility of 100 percent success nationwide.

“I fully expect when the federal government reauthorizes (the No Child Left Behind Act) AYP as we’ve know it the past seven to eight years will change,” he said. “That will happen before 2014. That’s my opinion.”

Meanwhile, CMS and all of other schools have met adequate yearly progress for another year.