CERRO GORDO - Called to the board to solve multiplication problems, two of the seven sixth-graders used "mental math" before their teacher wanted them to.

In the case of 60 x 50, 12-year-old Rachel Eads had multiplied 5 by 6 and "annexed" the two zeroes onto the result to get 3,000.

"I wanted you to do it the long way first," Karen Wildman told the class. "Which way do you think is easier?"

A.J. Hart, 12, didn't need to think about that very long: "The short way is more fun."

Rachel, A.J. and their classmates helped put Cerro Gordo in the top 10 school districts among 41 surrounding Decatur on 2007 achievement testing.

For their performance and improvement on Illinois Standards Achievement Tests given to elementary and middle school students, district educators credit the extra attention and specialized instruction they have received since their large number was split into three sections in fourth grade.

Cerro Gordo was also among only 11 districts in rural Central Illinois that showed improvement from 2006 on the Prairie State Achievement Exam, an accomplishment that grew out of requiring second-semester juniors to take a class to prepare them for it.

"Making it mandatory and part of the school day sends the message that this is important," said Superintendent Brett Robinson.

Few districts across the state had the level of success in 2007 that Cerro Gordo did with the state average on the Prairie State test declining from 54.3 percent in 2006 to 52.6 percent in 2007.

State Superintendent Christopher Koch was quick to point out that schools and districts received the latest test results earlier than in recent years after the delivery of 2006 results set a record for tardiness, but said the state Board of Education does not know why Prairie State results went down.

"We want to look at whether there was any difference in the test from one year to the next," Koch said.

Even so, it was a fairly good year with growth on the Illinois Standards test and, in the face of a higher target under the No Child Left Behind Act, a small increase in the number of area schools and districts that failed to make adequate progress: six districts and 11 schools compared to four districts and seven schools in 2006.

Koch also highlighted news that 184 schools and 36 districts have been taken off "needs improvement" status because they made adequate yearly progress for the second year in a row. Among the schools is Cowden-Herrick High School, and among the districts are Lincoln Elementary and Mount Zion.

Both districts did this by raising the number of special education students meeting reading goals - a persistent challenge for districts and larger schools since the federal law was passed in 2002.

No Child Left Behind requires the reading and math performance of each school and district to be at a certain level. In 2005 and 2006, the target was 47.5 percent, but in 2007, it rose to 55 percent. That target also applies to certain subgroups of 45 students or more, such as special education students.

In 2007, 28 of the 41 Central Illinois school districts had at least that many special education students, compared to 24 in 2006 and 16 in 2005.

Despite this, the number failing to make adequate yearly progress stayed fairly steady, with four in 2005 and 2006 and six in 2007.

The latest list (with failing special education percentages given) includes: Arcola (40.3 percent in reading, 31.7 percent in math), Neoga (30.8 percent reading), Nokomis (28.8 percent reading, 34.6 percent math), Ramsey (26.5 percent reading), St. Elmo (31.3 percent reading, 38.8 percent math) and Vandalia (38.5 percent reading). Vandalia showed enough improvement in reading to have been allowed Safe Harbor had the attendance of its special education students not fallen slightly short of the required 90 percent.

Instead, the higher target hurt area high schools most, particularly in math, with nine failing to make adequate yearly progress in 2007 compared to two the year before.

They (and their failures) were: Atwood-Hammond (32 percent in math), Charleston (48.2 percent in math, 13.3 percent among special education students in math, 33.3 percent among special education students in reading), Clinton (47.3 percent in reading, 46 percent among Caucasians in reading), DeLand-Weldon (27.3 percent in math), Meridian (41.2 percent in math, 44.1 percent in reading), Okaw Valley (41.5 percent in math), Pana (45.4 percent in math, 45.3 percent among Caucasians in math, 36.2 percent among low-income students in math, 42.6 percent among low-income students in reading), Sangamon Valley (21.7 percent in math) and Taylorville (30.8 percent among low-income students in math, 34.6 percent among low-income students in reading).

Other area schools falling short failed because of special education students. They were Vandalia Junior High (24.6 percent in math and 18 percent in reading) and Ramsey Elementary School (26.5 percent in reading).

Of these, the entities failing to make adequate yearly progress for the second consecutive year were the Ramsey, St. Elmo and Vandalia school districts, Charleston High School and Vandalia Junior High School.

None faces sanctions any more serious, however, than implementing an improvement plan submitted to the local school board and drawing up another for next year.

At that level are the Vandalia School District, having failed to make adequate yearly progress in 2004, 2005 and 2007, and Charleston High School, having failed in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007.

Vandalia Junior High, on the other hand, faces additional sanctions should its failure from 2006 and 2007 continue. As a school receiving federal Title I funds, it would have to implement a school improvement plan next year and offer parents the option of sending their children to another school in a neighboring district.

Some officials complained that getting 2006 results just weeks before 2007 testing last spring made improvement nearly impossible.

"There's nothing wrong with addressing student performance in reading and math," said Vandalia Superintendent Rich Well, "but all schools and districts are going to get caught by this sooner or later."

Well was referring to the schedule under No Child Left Behind that raises the percentage of students that must meet learning goals to 62.5 percent in 2008, with annual increases leading up to 100 percent in 2014 and beyond.

Percentages of students making adequate progress are calculated from all state testing, which also includes the Illinois Alternate Assessment given to some special education students and the Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English test given to students for whom English is a second language.

But they are primarily based on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test given to students in grades three through eight and the Prairie State Achievement Exam given to 11th-graders.

Out of the nine above-average school districts in Central Illinois whose improvement in 2007 extended to the more challenging Prairie State test, Cerro Gordo, Maroa-Forsyth and Teutopolis had the advantage of having fewer than one-quarter of their students living in poverty. Those with higher levels were Argenta-Oreana, Beecher City, Dieterich, Effingham, Neoga and Sullivan.

Effingham, the largest, encourages teachers to meet by grade level and department with an emphasis on state learning goals. Debbie Owen, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said English teachers meeting over the summer decided not to keep using a vocabulary workbook series after discovering that workbooks are not the best way to teach vocabulary.

She also said the district has had good results with special education students from a Corrective Reading curriculum that builds in more repetition.

Sullivan High School uses incentives to encourage juniors to put as much effort into the Work Keys exams on the second day of Prairie State testing as they do the ACT college entrance exam given the first day. Since 2005, students who exceed state learning goals in reading, math and science get $25 gas cards and those who meet or exceed in all three subjects get $15 cards.

Superintendent Terry Pearcy also said teachers focus on students who just missed meeting state learning goals the year before and that middle school students in particular have benefited from a continuity in instruction made possible by a low teacher turnover.

"I've never worked with a more dedicated staff or a more supportive community and board of education," Pearcy said.

Teamwork is also a major theme at the Argenta-Oreana School District, where Superintendent Damian Jones said implementing test-taking strategies into the everyday curriculum and providing academic assistance to students after school have improved test performance.

At Cerro Gordo High School, Robinson borrowed concepts from an ACT prep class he taught at Mount Zion High School his first year of teaching and transformed an optional before-school program taught by a math/science teacher to a semester-long class taught by a language arts teacher and a math/science specialist.

A bonus in 2007 was the chance for students to practice online.

"It was faster than paper tests," said Paul Workman, principal of curriculum and instruction for grades 6-12. "I think the kids really enjoyed that part of it."

Improvements have included a reading percentage that went from 50 percent in 2005 to 53.5 percent in 2006 to 71.7 percent in 2007.

Administrators give language arts teacher Vicky Gilpin a lot of the credit. Gilpin says every class taking the test is different, but admitted they've had something in common in recent years. "I can tell the kids are taking it more seriously," she said.

At the elementary and middle schools, an unusually large class of about 60 students prompted the district to hire a third fourth-grade teacher two years ago, a third fifth-grade teacher last year and a third sixth-grade teacher this year.

They are also among students for whom three consecutive years of reading and math performance can be examined since Illinois Standards Achievement testing in those subjects was expanded from grades three, five and eight prior to 2006.

At Cerro Gordo Grade School, the division of labor at fifth grade last year was particularly advantageous for state testing - with Jason Jacobs teaching math to all three sections, Lori Bullock handling language arts and Donna Schmidt taking care of reading - allowing 94.7 percent of fifth-graders to meet or exceed state learning goals in math for an improvement of nearly 11 percentage points since third grade and 91.3 percent to do so in reading for a gain of about 10 points over the same period.

Jacobs said taking section sizes from 30 students to 20 also gave teachers more time to address individual needs.

As a result, veteran sixth-grade teachers Karen Wildman and Cheryl Horne say their students seem every bit as prepared to learn what they need to know as the classes that came before.

Bullock, who taught these students in fourth grade before moving up with them to fifth grade, probably knows them best.

"They're very kind to one another and work well together," Bullock said. "They're one of the nicest classes I've ever had."

Theresa Churchill can be reached at tchurchill@herald-review.com or 421-7978.