MADISON — Madison Area Memorial High School students are improving their standardized test scores in an effort that will lift the school’s designation as low achieving.

The school has not officially made adequate yearly progress, which is the amount of academic growth expected by the federal government, but it is improving, according to Maine Department of Education data.

“I think the results are exciting, but I think it’s also just the start, too,” Principal Stephan Ouellette said.

The high school was named to a list of Maine’s 10 low-achieving schools this year and last year, largely because of a lack of growth on SAT scores.

The SAT is the college entrance examination that Maine uses as its standardized test for high school students. In order to make adequate yearly progress, a school has to meet its testing targets for at least two consecutive years.

In Madison’s case, the number of students deemed proficient in reading and math last year improved more than 10 percent from the previous year, said David Connerty-Marin, a spokesman for the education department. The number of students meeting standards has to increase another 10 percent when students test again this May for it to make adequate yearly progress under a certain provision called safe harbor.

The safe harbor designation is in place to recognize schools that are improving even though they don’t meet annual federal targets. Under the designation, the number of students that meet standards has to improve, in addition to certain subsections that include economically disadvantaged students.

The federal benchmark for 2010-11 required 78 percent of students to meet standards in reading and 66 percent in math.

But last year, just 42 percent of Madison juniors met standards in reading and 44 percent in math.

Those 2010-11 percentages, though, were a more than 10 percent increase over the previous year, and the school was considered to have made targets through safe harbor.

In the previous year, 2009-10, 28 percent of Madison juniors met standards in reading and 25 percent in math.

This year, 2011-12, the federal targets will jump to 86 percent in reading and 77 percent in math.

But because the state is requesting from the federal government that it be allowed to devise its own way of measuring student progress, the focus on increasingly high benchmarks will change. And there will likely be a new way of determining low-achieving — or priority — schools.

“We haven’t yet developed our definition for focus and priority schools, and so we have no idea whether Madison or any other school would meet those criteria,” Connerty-Marin said.

Still, Madison’s progress is encouraging, Ouellette said, and the school will continue to try to improve.

“I think raising the bar is good, but at the same time, again, all we can do is continue to work hard and prepare to the best of our abilities,” he said.

Erin Rhoda — 612-2368

erhoda@centralmaine.com

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