LANSING – On the school report cards issued Thursday by the Department of Education, 286 schools ranked as Reward Schools, but 146 were Priority Schools and 358 were Focus Schools needing some level of intervention.

The report also showed adequate yearly progress measures took the hit officials expected they would.

Changes to the cut scores on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program and Michigan Merit Exam tests, as well as changes in federal rules for measuring AYP, left 262 districts, about 48 percent, not making AYP under the federal measures. Last year, only 6.7 percent of districts did not make AYP.

But individual schools improved, with 82 percent making AYP compared to 79 percent last year.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan had particular praise for the Reward Schools, which will be used as examples and mentors for schools struggling to make progress. Reward Schools are generally the top 5 percent of schools in the state, as well as schools that are in the lower ranks but making substantially better progress than their peers.

“We applaud the hard work and achievement of the educators and students in our Reward Schools because they are zeroed in on improving learning,” Flanagan said. “We need to instill that goal in so many more schools, in order to help all kids be career- and college-ready and successful in life.”

To the Priority and Focus schools, Flanagan pledged the department’s assistance in improving their performance.

“We believe that teachers in the classrooms every day have important responsibilities and they work tirelessly to help students learn,” he said. “We will help the schools and teachers that need support to meet the unique needs of every student who depends on them.”

Priority Schools are the bottom 5 percent of schools or any high school with less than 60 percent graduation for the past three years and can expect, if they were not already Persistently Low Achieving schools last year, to see some direct state assistance as they were to restructure and improve. Priority Schools that do not show improvement could be moved to the Education Achievement Authority, which currently oversees a number of schools from the Detroit Public Schools, or be closed.

The Focus Schools, which show substantial performance gaps between the top 30 percent of students and the bottom 30 percent, can expect to see assistance through their district. The department is developing programs to help districts help those schools bring up.

Because of the sheer number of Focus Schools, there are not enough state resources to directly assist all of those schools, officials have said.

And, as predicted, the Focus Schools included a smattering of buildings from what are considered some of the top districts in the state. Ann Arbor Public Schools, which housed the top school in the state, had 27; Bloomfield Hills Schools had three; East Grand Rapids Public Schools had two; East Lansing School District had seven; Grosse Pointe Public Schools had five; Novi Community School District had seven; Okemos Public Schools had four; Rochester Community School District had nine; and Troy School District had 12.

The department set up websites listing the schools qualifying as Reward, Focus and Priority, as well as providing information about the meanings of the designations and resources available to those schools.

Of the top 10 schools in the state, according to the statewide top-to-bottom list, Ann Arbor Public Schools and Grand Rapids Public Schools had three each, with Grand Blanc Community Schools, Grosse Point Public Schools, Novi Community School District and Troy School District each having one. Five of the schools are elementary schools, one is a middle school, one is a high school, one combines the higher two levels, and two are specialty programs.

Of the bottom 10 schools, seven are Detroit Public Schools. Two, in the Monroe Intermediate School District and Southfield Public School District, are specialty programs. And one, Three Lakes Academy, is a charter in the Upper Peninsula.

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