By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

WOONSOCKET — The high school’s state testing results for 2006-2007 will keep the school under state intervention for another year but  Schools Superintendent Maureen Macera believes that progress is being made nonetheless.

This time the school missed a math target for special needs English as a Second Language students and will continue to seek improvement in that area for the next round of tests, Macera said.
 “We have taken all the students that failed Algebra I and enrolled them in the E-learning program,” Macera said. The group of about 20 students has been putting in extra time working on their math skills on computer at school and from home and that should help in future testing, she noted.
 “So far the students have had really great success,” she said. “We can tell how long they are working on their math and how long they spend doing their homework. Some are spending 2 to 3 hours a night on math so that is great,” she said.
Under the recent round of testing, 27.2 percent of the school’s students were found to have met state requirements for math proficiency. The school achieved a classification of 42.1 percent proficiency in the English language arts under the new results.
According to a news release, among all school levels, 79 percent of all schools in the state (248 schools) met all of the annual targets set by the No Child Left Behind Act (also known as making Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP). In 2006, 68 percent of all schools (216 schools) made AYP.
The high school results, based on the the New Standards Reference Exam that was given in March 2007 showed that half of the high schools (29 schools) made AYP. The previous year, 54 percent of the high schools (31 schools) met all the annual targets, according to the state Department of Education.
The classifications are based on the first year of tests conducted under the state’s New England Common Assessment Program put into place last year. The assessments gage grade level expectations developed in conjunction with New Hampshire and Vermont. The high school’s grade 11 students took the new tests in the fall.
The assessment system is the state’s response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act which requires states to set standardized achievement goals and track student proficiency in meeting those goals as they increase over a period of years. No Child Left Behind mandates that all schools meet 100 percent proficiency for all students by 2014. 
Macera, who has repeatedly pointed out the difficulties the state’s assessment system raises for urban districts like Woonsocket, still believes further work needs to be done on collecting performance data from special needs students.
The problem for Woonsocket is that the successes the district achieves in most of its assessment categories can easily be overshadowed by a finding of low improvement in a single area.
The high school also faces a higher bar for achievement due to the fact that it must carry the performance achievement of students who arrive on the district’s doorstep, spend a short time under instruction, and then leave.
“We have a population with a 34 percent mobility rate which is the history of most urban districts,” she said.
The movement of students in and out of the district, shows up in testing when students who have dropped out or moved on to another school are listed as not proficient under the assessments.
While supporting the move to track student progress in achieving state performance standards, Macera also believes more needs to be done to make that process equitable statewide.
 The latest results once again show many of the districts with the least diverse student populations and the highest per capita family incomes to be out performing those with the most diverse student populations and lowest per capita incomes.
They also show those districts providing extensive services to special needs students as continuing to rank far below the districts with the lowest level of those services.
To Macera, it becomes an issue of equity that has not yet been addressed by the Rhode Island assessment program.
The state’s system does have a alternative assessment for students with significant development issues and special education services, but all other students fall under the same testing and assessment process, she noted.
 “Some other states like New Jersey, have a third test for English as a Second Language students and students with an individual education plan,” Macera said. “It gives a clearer picture as to how the students are doing,” she said.
The problems the urban districts are experiencing are likely to be more apparent as the state continues to raise the bar on its performance standards in the coming years. Woonsocket has been under state intervention while working to raise achievement at both the high school and the middle school and could be joined by new districts in that designation as the standards increase.
At the same time, Macera said the district’s achievements in student performance and its offerings to educate students should not be overlooked. The district has been commended for the progress it has made at raising student performance on the elementary level and has put many changes in place to make improvements at the middle school, she noted.
The high school, as another example, holds full accreditation with an exemplary distinction from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and requires its students to complete a total of 26 credits to graduate, a number higher than that required by several of the higher performing suburban districts.
Woonsocket High also continues to send a notable number of its graduates on to colleges and universities or post high school technical training programs, according to the superintendent.
Macera hopes to be able to highlight those strengthens to other educators around the state while working on an urban district study panel the Department of Education is putting together and on which she will serve.
That may also provide her with the opportunity to win support for some modification in the assessment system even as the district works to address the problems areas it has.
“We have had some very good results, but with No Child Left Behind, if you miss even one of 21 targets, you are insufficient,” she said.