Here are examples of schools and districts put on the federally mandated improvement list this year or last and why.
Oregon Connections Academy, an online statewide charter school serving nearly 4,500 students
Why? Graduation rate are well below minimum acceptable rate of 67%, chronic absenteeism is rampant and too few freshmen earn enough credits.
Reynolds School District, which enrolls about 11,000 in east Multnomah County
Why? 15 of its 19 schools had results low enough to make the state list. It generated low reading and writing scores and high levels of chronic absenteeism at nearly all its schools, and Reynolds High let more than 30 percent of its freshmen fall off track toward graduation.
Mount Tabor Middle School, Portland
Why? Its small population of black students, about 20, showed little progress in reading and writing and many were chronically absent.
Evergreen Middle School, Hillsboro
Why? Too little growth in students’ reading, writing and math skills during 2017-18. Growth improved last school year, but the school remains on the state’s list until it shows robust evidence that it has changed teachers’ instructional effectiveness in ways that will last
Lincoln County Schools, which serve more than 5,500 students, 63% of whom are white and 5% of whom are Native American
Why? 13 of its 18 schools have ultra-low performance, most of them among groups such as Latinos, Native Americans or students with disabilities rather than among students as a whole.
Portland Public Schools, Oregon’s largest district and one where leaders say equity is their No. 1 goal
Why? Nearly 40 percent of the district’s schools were flagged for bottom-tier performance, almost half of those for performance problems among students as a whole. In every school flagged for low performance, reading and writing instruction didn’t prove effective. Apart from low-income students in three elementary schools, no student group in Portland’s problem schools – not whites, blacks, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, special ed students or low-income students – cleared a low bar in terms of reading performance or growth; on average, all those groups registered below the 10th percentile.
Source: Analysis by The Oregonian of data from Oregon Department of Education