Ladue Students Meet 13 of 14 Standards in State-Wide Evaluation

Ladue Schools are expected to receive the highest level of accreditation from the state, based on preliminary annual performance data released Friday.

The Ladue School District met 13 of the 14 standards on which the state evaluates school districts. 

Dr. Joan Oakley, Assistant Superintendent for Educational Leadership/ School Services said there was a discrepancy in the reporting. Ladue was listed as meeting 13 of the 14 MSIP-4 Standards.

"In our core data reporting to DESE, the calculation was based on numbers that showed only 18 students taking career education courses, which was incorrect, as we had 100 students taking those courses.  We have resubmitted the information to DESE to correct the error, which should result in Ladue meeting all 14 of the standards," said Dr. Oakley.

"Our AYP results showed slight growth overall, except for three subgroups.  We would like to see increased gains for students in our IEP, Free and Reduced Lunch and Black subgroups.  Our goal is to make sure all students are reaching their potential.

At the building level, several schools made strong gains, due to focused effort to assist struggling students.  Our AYP progress is what we would expect is many areas, due to the high achievement levels in many areas and excellent teaching efforts of our staff.

This past year, performance events were eliminated from the tests, which many of our students scored well on in the past.  It's unclear how the change in the test design impacted achievement.

Performance events measure a students ability to apply knowledge, rather than give one single correct answer.  Writing prompts were also eliminated from the tests, which has been an area of strength across grade levels.  

Growth is always important for our students and we continue to strive to meet the AYP target of 100 percent of our students scoring proficient or advanced by 2014.

As a district, our Strategic Plan addresses this challenge and we continue to implement interventions and instructional supports to help each child reach his or her potential."

The state considers 14 academic performance standards ranging from test scores, to attendance to the number of advanced courses to Annual College Test (ACT) scores. Of the 447 K-12 districts in the state, 256 met all 14 standards while 64 met 13 standards.

Margie Vandeven, assistant commissioner in the office of quality schools at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the scores aren't based only one year of data alone, but provide a report on each district's progress.

"We believe Missouri's Annual Performance Review is a much better indicator of student performance than the national Adequate Yearly Progress," she said.

To be fully accredited, a district must have met 9-14 of the standards, to receive provisional accreditation, the district must meet 6-9 standards. Districts who meet 0-5 standards can receive a recommendation to the State Board of Education to be classified as unaccredited.

The vast majority of schools in the state-510 of 520-are expected to receive full accreditation after the final APR results are released in September.

"The system we have in place helps us identify which districts we have that need more time and attention," she said.

The scores this year are relatively consistent with last year's results as each standard is compared, she said. Vandeven said while she is pleased with the progress the state has made, she knows districts can do better.

2011 Preliminary Annual Performance Review

For more information on each school district's score, please visit The Missouri Comprehensive Data System and click on Accountability Reports.