(Radio Iowa) – State officials say recent efforts to help 35 struggling public schools are yielding results. The students at these schools live in high-poverty areas and their test scores have been chronically low. New statewide accountability standards for all schools measure things like graduation rates and chronic absenteeism as well as test scores in language arts, math and science. Governor Reynolds says the overall score for these 35 schools jumped nearly five-and-a-half percent last year — and eight of the 35 schools saw a double-digit increase.

Tina Wahlert is the administrator of the preschool through 12th grade learning division in the Iowa Department of Education. Wahlert says just over two years ago the agency created regional school improvement teams that go into classrooms to observe teachers. A couple of weeks later they offer coaching to those teachers on new techniques to meet students’ needs.

Wahlert says over the past year, the department’s school improvement teams have spent six-thousand hours in the 35 schools designated in need of comprehensive improvement.

Twelve of the 35 schools getting this new level of attention are in the Des Moines Community School District, three are in Waterloo and three are in Cedar Rapids. The other seven schools are Davenport, where T-J Schneckloth is superintendent. He says the Department of Education staff who are coming into those buildings have a whole new approach. He says they aren’t going into classrooms with a clipboard, just checking off items on a list.

And Schneckloth says recent state laws that banned the use of cell phones in classrooms and required better tracking of chronic absenteeism are making a difference in his district.