"New Kids Stop Mattering Day""

Once in a while, you can hear teachers talking about which kids they're accountable for and which they're not.  Kids new to the US, for example, don't take or don't have their ISAT scores included in a schools AYP rating (though they take other tests to measure their knowledge and acquisition of English). 

A newspaper column from Dallas reminds us that there's another, less intentional kind of unaccountable -- the kids who transfer in after a certain date (October 27 in Dallas -- I don't know what it is here). The writer calls it: "New Kids Stop Mattering Day" – the day after which any new students enrolling at your school won't be counted in next spring's test scores. 

According to one study, as many as 20 percent of kids in some Texas schools are excluded from the testing because of late enrollment, and the state recently tried to exclude even more kids from testing by requiring that they be at the same school two years in a row to be counted. 

Comments

Imagine how much less these kids will matter when merit pay comes to town.

[Misterteacher]

Actually, these kids DO still have to take the test, but the confusion arises from where their test scores will count. After that October date, their scores are supposed to count against or for the school that they came from.

[Fred]

If kids enroll after the October date, they are counted in neither the former school or the current school. They are counted in the district data if they transferred from one school to another within the district.
This rule is a good thing and people should not look at it any other way. The rationale is that schools should only be responsible for children who they have taught for a school year. NCLB has allowed states to define "school year" in pretty broad terms.
The alternative, however, is to have to count kids that have just enrooled in your school prior to the administration of the test. That is not fair. The press has used this rule to promote cheap stories about kids being left behind.
Most schools have no ability to effectively manipulate this data to escape accountability.

[Mike]

My school, and I'm sure we're anything but unusual, has a special education population of about 12% give or take. Many of those kids will never pass a standardized test no matter how brilliant their teachers and how innovative their administrators, and surely their numbers will be far greater than the 1% we're allowed to exempt.

Yeah, we'll get 100% performing at grade level. NCLB to the rescue.

do the kids scores really count for their former schools, or do they not really count for anyone?

you hear about schools counseling kids out whose scores may be lower, during the year, and maybe that would happen less if the school knew that the kids' scores were going to count against them even if they moved schools in january.

[Kimberly Herbert]

You want the flip side of this. We beg parents who are doing the landlord hop to fill out transfer forms to keep their kids in our school.

We know they are going to go through several more schools, rub people the wrong way, and test the teachers by pushing as hard as they can. Then the student will fail the tests because of attitude not aptitude problems – their failing scores come back and haunt us.

We know if they stay with us – they can pass the test. So we continue to beg their parents to fill out the transfer forms and keep their school year steady with the same teachers, environment, administrators, and friends.

10:31 - These kids do not count at either school.