44 Percent Southwest Atlanta Schools Make AYP

Just under half the Atlanta Public Schools in southwest Atlanta met the annual academic standards set by the state, according to a Cascade Patch review of the 2011 Adequate Yearly Progress Report released Wednesday by the state board of education.

Twelve elementary schools, three middle schools and only one-third of one high school within the general Cascade Patch boundaries made the list, which ultimately can affect everything from property values to how much federal funding a school district receives.

The Cascade Patch area is loosely bound by, but not limited to, the following area: I-20 to the north, 75-85 to the east (excluding College Park and East Point except the Marketplace), Camp Creek Parkway on the south around to Fulton Industrial to the west.

The twelve Cascade Patch schools that made AYP include:

• Beecher
• Capital View
• Cascade
• Continental Colony
• Fickett
• Kindezi (just north of Cascade Patch)
• KIPP West Atlanta Young Scholars
• KIPP Strive
• Perkerson
• Towns
• Venetian
• West Manor

The three middle schools that made AYP include:

• Brown
• Bunche
• Young

The only high school in the area on the list was the (the Therrell School of Health and Science and Therrell School of Law, Government and Public Policy did not make AYP, according to the state's database).

According to the state board of education, AYP is a series of annual performance goals set by the state for each school district and school as well as for the state as a whole. By participating in Title I, a voluntary federal program that provides more than $11 billion to participating states to help educate low-income children, states agree to commit themselves to the goal of the federal No Child Left Behind Act: that all students will be proficient in Reading/English Language Arts and Mathematics, as determined by state assessments, by 2014.

For a full list of schools and their AYP status, visit the 2011 AYP report search page on the Georgia Department of Education website.