LEWISTON – In the past year, test scores in the city’s elementary schools went up in seven areas and down in four.

But under the federal No Child Left Behind law, students – mostly immigrants learning to speak English – in four of seven schools did not meet testing standards.

Those schools are Longley, McMahon and Montello elementaries, and Lewiston Middle School.

If they fail to meet the standards again next year, they would face consequences under the law, such as informing parents that they can send their children to higher-performing schools.

The goal of No Child Left Behind is for all students to perform at their grade levels. Everyone embraces that goal, said School Superintendent Leon Levesque.

But basing progress on the testing of immigrant students still learning to read and write in English is unfair, he said.

“We can’t help that. That’s who we are in Lewiston,” Levesque said. “These are our children. They all deserve an opportunity to learn and to be part of our community.”

Of the city’s 4,800 students, about 800 are immigrants. Most are Somalis, who began arriving here in 2001. Many begin school behind grade level and have only one or two years to catch up with limited English or no English skills.

“How would you feel if you were in China for two years and you sat down to take a Chinese test in Chinese?” Levesque asked. “We want the rules to be fair.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education said his department is recommending the law be changed so that if one group of students did not meet standards, the whole school would not be labeled.

With that change, “we could focus more resources to that one sub-group,” said DOE spokesman Rogers Johnson. That change is included in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind now before Congress.

Tale of two schools

One difference in the law this year is that scores in more grades must be counted, and standards are expected to rise in coming years. That, combined with how sub-groups of students are counted, provides more ways for schools to fail.

“We’re the first ones to kind of face the music of the numbers,” Levesque said. “Let this thing play out a couple of more years and you’re going to see all types of schools falling by the wayside with this No Child Left Behind.”

If Lewiston traded students with high-performing schools in wealthy coastal communities, “I can tell you they wouldn’t be excelling either.”

Two Lewiston schools illustrate Levesque’s point.

Pettingill Elementary School is situated in a middle-income neighborhood not far from Bates College. It has the highest test scores in Lewiston, significantly above state averages. Pettingill also has fewer disadvantaged students and is the only Lewiston school that closely reflects state demographic averages.

The state average of poor students is 37-39 percent; Pettingill’s is 36.2. The state average of immigrant students not proficient in English is 2 percent; Pettingill’s 1.25 percent.

Then there’s Longley Elementary.

Longley has the lowest test scores in Lewiston, far below state expectations. Located in the poorest part of the city and in a neighborhood where immigrants have settled, it has the most disadvantaged student population.

Longley’s percentage of poor students is a whopping 97-98 percent. Its immigrant students learning to speak English ranges from 26 to 38 percent. It was the only school that failed as a whole. Of Longley’s 292 students, more than a third are immigrants with low levels of English proficiency.

If Lewiston’s demographics reflected state averages, “we’d be doing great,” Levesque said. “There’s got to be a way of creating a level playing field.”

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, acknowledged that No Child Left Behind has shortcomings and Congress has not fixed them. She and Sen. Susan Collins have re-introduced recommendations from a 2005 task force. While accountability is a worthy goal, “we must balance it with the realities of a rural state like Maine,” Snowe said.

While waiting for changes from Washington, Lewiston has adopted a new way of testing students: the Northwest Evaluation Association, to measure students’ academic growth from year to year.

If the majority of K-8 schools have to send out letters to parents next year, Levesque said he’ll follow the law. “We’ll just let it play out. That’s all we can do.”