The Delaware Department of Education recently released the summary of Delaware School District Accountability for 2007-2008. Two local school districts improved and two others slipped down in the ratings.

    Delaware uses the Delaware Student Testing Program to assess student knowledge in reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies. Each year’s DSTP results are used to determine school district accountability ratings.

    The individual school ratings were released in August.

    The 19 school districts are rated from highest to lowest with the following ratings: superior, commendable, academic review, academic progress (under improvement) and academic watch (under improvement). The under improvement designation comes when districts don’t improve their scores enough from prior years.

    Caesar Rodney School District and Polytech School District both were rated as superior, moving up from being named commendable last year. There was only one other school district rated at superior throughout the state.

    Capital School District and Lake Forest School District were rated at academic review, both decreasing one rating from the previous year.

    Statewide there were six districts rated as commendable, down from 12 in 2006-2007, and four districts rated at academic review, one less district than the previous year.

    In addition four school districts are rated as academic progress under improvement and two districts were rated as academic watch under improvement.

    Statewide 11 districts made Adequate Yearly Progress, down from 13 the year before. Caesar Rodney and Polytech met or exceeded AYP, while Capital and Lake Forest did not.

    AYP is a formula that uses the participation rate for English/language arts and math; improvement or hitting an annual target in reading and math scale scores for elementary and middle schools and cohort graduation rate for high schools; and performance of a group of students last year to a new group of students in the current year.

    AYP is measured within nine subgroups in each school. They are all students, American Indian, Asian American, African American, Hispanic, white, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities and limited English proficient.

    For a complete look at the Delaware school district ratings, visit www.doe.k12.de.us/aab/accountability/district_account.shtml.