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GREENSBORO - Fewer than half of Guilford County's elementary and middle schools made Adequate Yearly Progress in math during the last school year, the district announced Monday.

The results are preliminary. Reading scores are not available for elementary and middle schools. High school results included reading and math scores, and a third of the county's high schools made adequate yearly progress.

For the purpose of comparing progress from year to year, the numbers are largely meaningless, because the standard for progress changed from the previous year.

Specifically, the percentage of students expected to be "proficient" increased from the previous year.

In turn, that caused the number of schools in Guilford County meeting the average yearly progress to plummet, regardless of whether students actually performed better than during the previous year.

This year, 38 of 89 elementary and middle schools met the goal in math, and eight of 24 high schools met the goal. Last year, 62 of 111 schools met the goal , according to the state.

Comparing this year's results to last year's is "inappropriate," said Gongshu Zhang , the district's chief accountability and research officer.

"It's apples to oranges," he said.

Still, district officials said they believe the district needs to improve.

"We have made some progress, but there is still lots of work that we need to do," said Eric Becoats , co-interim superintendent.

Becoats said the district is still reviewing the results to determine why more schools didn't meet the progress goals. The district also is working to see what sanctions will result from this year's scores, he said.

The raised standards meant that a number of schools that made Adequate Yearly Progress last year did not this year.

At Oak Hill Elementary in High Point, which fell into that category, principal Sara Roberts said having less teacher turnover should help. Last year, the school had a number of new teachers. This year, the teaching staff remained intact.

That said, missing the goal means new approaches are necessary, she said.

"You keep trying new things. You keep pushing harder. you don't keep doing the same old, same old," she said.

Roberts said the federal system doesn't take into account all the factors a school faces in educating students.

At Oak Hill, nearly half of the students are learning English, and more speak the language but speak another language at home.

That makes it harder for students to do well on the tests, but that isn't taken into account, she said.

"It takes more than one year to learn English," she said.

Guilford wasn't the only district to see fewer schools meet the standards.

Twenty-three percent of schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district met the standards compared to 40 percent the year before, according to the state .

In Forsyth, the percentage dropped from 25 to 24 percent .

Not all districts fared worse. In Cumberland County, for example, the number of schools meeting the standard increased from 28 to 34 percent .

Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or at jason.hardin@news-record.com