PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- New data suggests that just 61 percent of Oregon schools are meeting federal academic goals, down nearly 14 percentage points in a single year.

As in years past, the picture looks bleaker for high schools than it does for elementary and middle schools.

About 70 percent of Oregon elementary and middle schools hit the academic targets, while just about 36 percent of high schools did so.

In the Eugene, Bethel and Springfield school districts, South Eugene was the only high school that met adequate yearly progress on the recent reports, according to the Oregon Deparment of Education database.

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The drop comes as Oregon sets the achievement bar higher for students and their teachers. This year, for the first time, 60 percent of all students had to be up to grade level in reading, and 59 percent in math, for a school to make the grade.

Last year, the bar was at 50 percent, and 49 percent, respectively.

Schools also must meet an attendance or graduation requirement.

And things are only going to get tougher for Oregon schools, thanks to the state's decision in 2002 to backload the implementation of the federal law known as No Child Left Behind.

Some states have been steadily raising progress targets each year in hopes of reaching the federal law's ultimate goal of getting 100 percent of students to grade level by 2014.

But Oregon spaced things out, allowing schools a cushion of several years to get to the 50 percent mark, then speeding up the targets over the next six years.

And 36 schools statewide that receive federal funding targeted for poorer students have failed to hit academic targets in the same subject for two or more years in a row. That lands them on what's known as the "school improvement" list.

The longer schools stay on the list, the more dire the sanctions that they face. In the first year, schools must pay transportation costs for students who wish to attend another school in their district. In the third, they are required to pay for tutors or after-school help.

By year four, schools must start contemplating an entirely different future: reopening as a charter school, for example, or replacing an entire staff of teachers and administrators.

Victor Vergara is the principal at Valor Middle School in Woodburn, now entering its fourth straight year on the "school improvement" list. He said it's frustrating for his staff members who have seen their students make consistent improvements over the last five years, only to have one or two categories of students fall short of the academic targets.

Under No Child Left Behind, the performance of different groups of students — including white, black, Hispanic, Asian, special education and those learning to speak English — must be scrutinized. If even one of those groups fails to meet academic targets, an entire school can land on the list as needing improvement.

Vergara said his school would have met the goals, but for a small handful of special education and ESL students, in a school where most families live below the poverty levels. Meanwhile, other students are progressing by leaps and bounds, and getting no credit for it, he said.

"If we followed a growth model, Valor would be one of the best schools in the state," he said. Still, Vergara is a realist, and said that he'll be meeting soon with his superintendent to see how his school will choose to restructure.

On the other end of the spectrum, three schools did pull themselves off the school improvement list, even with the tougher targets: East Gresham Elementary, Grant Community School in Salem and Astoria Middle School.

Tim Oberg, newly appointed principal at East Gresham, said teachers there focused on literacy, devoting huge blocks of time during the day to reading and language arts. That helped push up scores, he said, though like Vergara he supports tracking individual student growth, instead of comparing this year's students to the previous year's.

"Without it, it will seem like schools are failing, when in fact there may be tremendous growth going on, it's just not reported that way," Oberg said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.