Scotland County schools were among the highest performers in Adequate Yearly Progress results, besting neighboring counties and some of the largest state systems, according to state data released Wednesday.

Scotland County had 12 out of 20 schools, or 60 percent, meet their AYP targets as set by the No Child Left Behind Act for the 2009-2010 school year, a score that exceeds all surrounding districts.

Richmond County, Scotland's perennial athletic rival, had just 29.4 percent of it's schools make AYP, with Robeson only slightly ahead with 31.7 percent of it's schools meeting the federal criteria. Hoke and Moore County did better, with 50 percent and 54.5 percent, respectively.

Scotland's score also surpassed the state's five largest school districts. The largest of those, the Wake County School System, did worse with just 38.4 percent meeting their AYP targets.

"It just goes to show that our schools are doing what they need to be doing," School Spokesman Andy Cagle said.

He credited teachers and administrators for the system's success with AYP results.

"We are showing growth," Cagle said.

Superintendent Rick Stout was far from impressed with the above-average results, criticizing AYP as an accurate measure for gauging educational success.

"It's really a poor way to evaluate a school," Stout said.

His big issue is the use of subgroups to create targets for a school, with a single missed target making the school fail.

Only 60 percent of Scotland County Schools made AYP, but the schools met more than 90 percent of the goals.

Stout says AYP will likely disappear from future federal standards, with better standards of measurement emerging from the U.S. Department of Education.

"The numbers we really want to look at is the ABCs," he said.

He said the state indicator shows significant growth across the district, with student achievement growing by double digits in some schools.

Even with state and federal indicators showing a strong performance for Scotland County schools, Stout said, administrators are far satisfied with student achievement.

"It will take us a number of years to get us to where we need to be," Stout said. "We are encouraged by what we saw last year, but we still have a lot of work to do."

Targets explained

Making AYP is based on all the targets being met by a school, according to Ed Williams, director of testing and accountability.

Williams, referred to as "the guru of testing" by his peers, says the targets are derived from different groups meeting specific criteria.

He says schools are first broken down into as many as 10 different subgroups.

Possible subgroups are:

• The school as a whole

• White

• Black

• Native American

• Asian/Pacific Islander

• Hispanic

• Multiracial

• Limited English Proficient

• Students with Disabilities

• Economically Disadvantaged Students

Students count towards all applicable subgroups, and automatically count towards two subgroups – a student's school and racial group. Any group of 40 or more is used for AYP reports.

For each subgroup, the school has four targets, two each for the math and reading tests. The first target is at least 95 percent of students must take the test and the second target is for a student to be proficient.

Proficiency targets for the 2009-2010 school year for third through eighth graders are 43.2 percent of students being proficient in reading and 77.2 percent being proficient in math. For tenth graders, 38.5 percent must be proficient in reading and language arts and 68.4 percent must be proficient in math.

For elementary and middle schools, the overall school has a target to either improve its attendance rate by 1.0 percent or have an average attendance rate over 90.0 percent. For high schools, graduation rates are used instead of attendance.

Williams said that, for a school that had two subgroups, there would be nine targets.

Those with the most targets among county schools – Carver, Spring Hill and Sycamore Lane middle schools – each had eight subgroups and 25 targets.

The results, released by school districts statewide on Wednesday, are still preliminary as scores will be approved by the state Board of Education on Aug 5.

Several school systems are still waiting for data on some of their schools. Scotland County Ninth Grade Academy is the only local school without AYP results, Cagle said. The school met it's targets the past two school years.