List of Clark County schools coming up short grows longer.(news)

BYLINE: LISA KIM BACH, REVIEW-JOURNAL

The number of schools failing to achieve performance goals for two consecutive years ballooned in the Clark County School District, from 18 schools in 2002-03, to 82 schools in 2003-04.

Local public schools are losing ground as they struggle to meet the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which calls for 100 percent of the nation's public schoolchildren to demonstrate academic proficiency by 2013.

It's a goal educators across the nation, including Clark County schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia, has criticized as being unrealistic.

"You really have to use this as a method of ongoing improvement and not a tool to beat up schools," Garcia said. "There are a number of factors that influence this, and not all of them are related to student performance."

Garcia said school evaluations are based on 135 different factors, including attendance, staffing and student test results. The gains a school must demonstrate are called adequate yearly progress. To make adequate progress, a school must show proficiency in basic skills testing for all student groups in grades 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 and 11.

Prior to the No Child Left Behind Act, test results for…