Having trouble grasping "adequate yearly progress" and the federal No Child Left Behind Act?
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions.
What is No Child Left Behind? It's part of President Bush's initiative, rooted in his Texas governorship, to hold schools more accountable for student achievement by publishing test scores, rewarding high-achieving schools and helping or penalizing chronically low-performing ones. Its goal: All children will score as proficient on state exams by 2014.
What is "adequate yearly progress"? Commonly referred to as AYP, it's a way of quantifying improvement toward NCLB's ultimate goal.
Who is counted? The entire school, plus nine demographic subgroups: African-American, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Caucasian, economically disadvantaged, students with limited English proficiency and students with disabilities.
The law counts only third- through eighth-graders' and 10th-graders' scores on the core curriculum tests, or CRTs. The CRTs are taken each spring by first- through 11th-graders under the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students, or U-PASS.
What criteria are used for AYP? This year, schools must show AYP in two areas:
Academic achievement: Schools are expected to have at least 65 percent of third- through eighth-graders, and 64 percent of 10th-graders, scoring as proficient in language arts, and at least 57 percent of third- through eighth-graders, and 35 percent of 10th-graders, proficient in math.
If a school doesn't meet the goal outright, it has two things to fall back on.
Under a "10 percent rule," a school can show it has reduced the number of children scoring below proficient by 10 percent from the year before. So, if a school has 100 low-income students, and 50 were proficient on last year's test, and 60 are proficient on this year's test, the group makes AYP.
The state also is using a "confidence interval" on scores, similar to a statistical margin of error, used to determine whether test score increases or declines are real or a statistical anomaly.
Also, groups that have fewer than 10 students are considered too small to count. So they get an automatic "pass" in academic achievement.
Participation: Schools must show 95 percent of students took the tests.
Groups with fewer than 40 students, however, are considered too small to count and are given an automatic "pass" on participation.
Utah has had issues with the participation rule because some teachers incorrectly marked students as "absent" if the student didn't complete the test. Superintendents, however, are able to consider other data and grant AYP on appeal.
Attendance: Next year, Utah will use an additional rule to grant AYP for schools that fall into that "10 percent rule." In those cases, elementary schools must show 93 percent attendance rates; high schools must have 85.7 percent graduation rates.
How are the achievement goals set? They are based on 2002 core curriculum test scores and school enrollment.
Basically, the state ranked all schools' test scores, high to low. Next to that list, it wrote down the populations of those schools.
Then, workers worked from the bottom of the list up until they counted off 20 percent of Utah's enrollment in tested grades. The corresponding test score became the scoring goal.
The bar appears particularly low for 10th-grade math. That's because Utah math exams are by subject and go up to algebra and geometry only — subjects that advanced math students took in junior high.
What does a school have to do to make AYP? The school as a whole, and each separate student subgroup, must meet both the participation and academic achievement criteria to make AYP. If one group fails to meet the goal in either category, the whole school fails to make AYP.
What happens if a school makes AYP? The school is publicly noted as doing so. No rewards are offered.
What about those that don't make AYP? Here, the federal law differentiates between low-income schools receiving federal Title I funds, and schools that don't.
Schools that don't receive Title I funds are publicly identified as not making AYP. The state's U-PASS law requires those schools to come up with improvement plans.
Title I schools are targeted for a series of progressive interventions and sanctions:
Year 1: The school is warned and superintendents encouraged to take swift action toward improvement.
Year 2: The school is placed on "school improvement," which some call the "failing schools" list, and creates a two-year achievement plan. The district has to notify parents of the designation and tell parents they have an option to transfer to a higher-scoring school.
Year 3: The district arranges for extra tutoring; the school receives a state monitor.
Year 4: The school is required to take more severe corrective action and reports to the state.
Year 5: The district develops a plan for new school governance.
Year 6: The district or state takes over the school.
How do schools get off "school improvement"? They must achieve AYP two years in a row.
Source: State Office of Education