Oregon Public Broadcasting

After a jump last year in the number of Oregon schools meeting federal benchmarks, higher standards this year caused 200 more schools to miss the mark. Rob Manning reports.

Almost 40 percent of Oregon schools fell short of “Adequate Yearly Progress” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

That’s up from about 25 percent missing the mark, last year. The big difference is that to make the mark this past year, schools needed ten percent more students to pass reading and math tests than last year.

State schools’ superintendent Susan Castillo says rising standards don’t excuse the disappointing numbers.

Susan Castillo: “It once again, really shines the light on the need for us to help more of our students get to our achievement levels that we need them to get to, and we have a lot of work to do.”

Oregon will continue to demand about 60 percent of students reach benchmarks, over the next two years. But then the targets will rise sharply until 2014, when every student is expected to pass.