There are success stories in this year’s ratings, like Pike Central High School. Shoals and Griffith elementary schools were upgraded from last year’s rankings. Griffith went from progress to commendable with a 2.9 percent jump in test scores. Shoals Elementary jumped two spots from progress to exemplary with a 3.7 percent improvement in scores.

Another school to improve in 2007 was Loogootee East Elementary, which went from commendable to exemplary. The school was also named a Four-Star school for the second year in the row. Principal Bill Powell said three main reasons stand out.

“We’ve got some great students, parents and I’ve got a great staff,” Powell said. “When you put all three of them together, that’s going to equal exemplary status.”

“It seems it’s a lot easier to get to the top than to stay there,” Powell said. “It’s difficult to stay at a certain level and get better. I think it happens with a lot of different things we do.

“It seems to be an unrealistic expectation to ask that we improve 1 percent every year from now until whenever,” Powell said. “Eventually you will hit that stone wall, and you are not going to get any higher.”

Department of Education press representative Lynelle Miller said even if a school has a high passing rate, the goal is for 100 percent.

“Ultimately our goal is to get 100 percent of the kids passing 100 percent of the test,” Miller said. “We won’t stop until that happens.

“As far as (improvement ratings) being a problem, we don’t think it’s a problem even if schools are improving by a single percentage point,” Miller said.

School 2007 Category 2006 Category 2007 Performance 2007 Improvement

Barr-Reeve Primary Exemplary Exemplary 85.2 1.1

Barr-Reeve Intermediate Exemplary Exemplary 85.2 1.1

Barr-Reeve Jr.-Sr. High Commendable Commendable 89.7 -0.3

North Daviess Elementary Exemplary Exemplary 80.5 1.1