A large number of Harlan County’s students met federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) goals this year in both reading and mathematics, according to data recently released by the Kentucky Department of Education.

The Harlan County School System met 101 out of 109 goals and the Harlan Independent School System met all of its goals for the fifth consecutive year.

However, the county school system fell short of the standards established under NCLB due to low graduation rates and math scores at the high school level. That forced the school district into a Tier 3 level of consequence for the second straight year.

Each of the county school district’s high schools exceeded the goals in reading but fell short in math. Cumberland High School scored a 55.88 in reading and a 30.99 in math, while Evarts High School scored a 54.22 in reading and 19.44 in math and James A. Cawood High School receive a 51.55 in reading and a 24.36 in math. The NCLB goal for reading is 39.45, while the math goal is 39.82.

Brent Roark, the Title I director for the county school system who also oversees NCLB requirements, said the math score and graduation rates were the only goals the county school district failed to reach. He added that improving those areas will be a priority of the district in the upcoming year.

“Each math score took a fairly significant drop from last year. I don’t know if the kids didn’t take the test as seriously because it was the last year for those high schools. But they had been doing better than that,” Roark said. “The district will be making sure our students are exposed to the math curriculum and content they should be. We are dropping off at the high school level. We need to correct that, and we will correct that.”

NCLB is a federal law designed to measure public schools’ academic progress based on state tests in reading and math.

Signed into law in 2002, it requires states to provide information on schools’ progress toward proficiency by 2014, utilizing a tier system for schools that fail to meet standards. Tier 5 has the harshest sanctions, including implementing alternate school management plans.

All tiers of consequence offer the option of transferring schools — with the district providing transportation — and require revised school improvement plans.

Only schools funded by the federal Title I program, which helps provide educational services to disadvantaged children, are subject to sanctions under NCLB if they do not meet testing goals for two or more consecutive years.

High school NCLB data is collected from juniors in math and sophomores in reading. With the closure of the three county high schools, NCLB data will be completely reconfigured for the 2008-2009 school year for the new Harlan County High School.

While Roark said there are some improvements to be made at the high school level, he said he is pleased with the results of the elementary schools throughout the county, which met all of their NCLB goals.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with our elementary schools,” Roark said. “It is a good accomplishment to have all eight elementary schools in good shape when only 70 percent statewide are.”

All eight elementary school’s reading scores were well above the NCLB goal of 53.14 percent proficient. Mathematics scores at the elementary level made a tremendous increase of nearly 10 percent over last year’s scores. The district’s elementary math score averaged 59.64 percent proficient while the NCLB goal was only 39.6 percent. Several county schools posted even larger individual gains in mathematics.

Hall Elementary School (recently renamed James A. Cawood Elementary School) made adequate yearly progress for the second consecutive year and will now be removed from NCLB sanctions.

Overall, the district met 12 of 13 goals with graduation rate being the only NCLB goal not met. NCLB data measures the number of third- through eighth-grade students who reach the proficient level in reading and mathematics.

Harlan Independent Schools Superintendent David Johnson said he is pleased that his district met all of its NCLB goals.

“We are pleased that we were able to achieve our goals and meet adequate yearly progress for the fifth consecutive year,” Johnson said. “We are also pleased that our math scores increased significantly over last year. It pleased us as well that our reading scores continued to improve.”

Johnson said the school district can still improve, especially the gap between “at-risk” students and other students decrease.

“One area of concern is we still have a gap between at-risk students and our other students. We have improvement to make there, and that is something we will be working on,” he said. “We still have a lot of room to grow and improve.”

Kentucky Department of Education data indicated that 70.9 percent, or 820 of Kentucky’s 1,157 public schools, made adequate yearly progress in the 2007-2008 school year under the requirements of the federal NCLB Act.

In 2007, 78.7 percent of schools made adequate yearly progress. According the department of education, a rise in reading and mathematics goals likely contributed to a lower percentage of schools making adequate yearly progress in 2008 than in 2007.

To learn more about NCLB and how the legislation was designed to work, visit www.kde.state.ky.us or www.ed.gov.