Fewer schools meet student progress standards

The Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, standard requires schools to meet attendance targets and reading, math and language arts proficiency targets for various groups of students, including minorities, students with disabilities, students with limited English proficiency and students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

Schools must meet all of their individual targets to get credit for making adequate progress overall. The results could impact Title I funding and provide families with the opportunity to change schools if their assigned school has missed AYP more than once.

This year, 61 of Wake County's 158 schools made AYP, down from 98 a year ago. District officials said 54 other schools missed AYP by one or two targets.

Durham Public Schools had 13 of 52 schools make AYP for the 2009-10 school year, compared with 22 the previous year. In Johnston County, the number of schools making AYP this year dropped from 34 to 24 of 40.

Thirteen of 19 schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district made AYP, compared with 15 a year ago. In other Orange County schools, five of 12 made AYP, while 11 met the standard a year ago.

In Cumberland County, 50 of 87 schools made AYP, down from 62 in 2008-09. Twenty of 31 schools in Wayne County met the annual standard, compared with 28 a year ago.

The state sent advisers to Halifax County Schools last year to help low-performing schools, but the preliminary results show only one of 11 schools in the district met AYP in 2009-10.

State officials said it's difficult to put the numbers into meaningful context until the state's detailed report comes out in early August.