AYP: Are You Perfect?

1. AYP: Are You Perfect? By: Jalynn Speck, Linda Oller, and Jill Polsley

2. Where did Adequate Yearly Progress come from? • Started with ESEA in 1965 • Culminates more than four decades • 1st set of objectives were to be reached in 2000. This was stated in 1989. • When George W. Bush took office in 2000, he put NCLB in as a priority for approval • Became a major topic in Washington in May of 2001 • On January 8, 2002, NCLB became a law

3. NCLB requires AYP to be reported by each state (Building, District and State level) • Focus on Reading and Math • The data collected by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, disability status, English proficiency, and migrant status is put on the Report Card for each building, district, and state. • Funding depends on AYP Report Card • Report Card is published each fall and is the best place to get performance information

4. Is AYP attainable?

5. Pros of AYP • Monitors educational systems for public accountability • Evaluates the effectiveness of instructional practices • Measures student achievement • Evaluates students’ mastery of skills

6. Provides information to better identify instructional practices • Every child is counted in NCLB so schools are responsible for making sure every child is learning • Supports early literacy through the Early Reading First initiative • Gives options to students and parents enrolled in schools failing to meet AYP

7. Cons of AYP • Tests aren’t the only way to gauge a student’s knowledge • State by state comparisons are not revealing due to the wide variations in state standards and the tests to which AYP is based • Each state calculates AYP differently so how are states comparable to each other • AYP performance can look very different within states • Some groups of students don’t have as much impact on whether a school makes AYP • Some kids don’t count toward whether their subgroup made AYP

8. Schools that might make AYP have to pass another indicator or they will be identified as failing • Indicators of school performance are not accurate or viable • Testing is not coupled with plans and funding to remedy problems that might be detected by the testing. Instead, a system of increasing punishments is provided to take away resources of schools which exhibit failing test scores. • 71% have reported having reduced instructional time in at least one other subject to make more time for reading and mathematics • After-school programs are neglected • Setting the stage for the eventual privatization of the public system

9. Focusing on improving the average student’s education may ignore individual differences between students, and potentially harm both special and gifted education programs • ESL students are expected to take the same tests and show proficiency equal to their English speaking peers • Focuses on core classes and removes funding from music programs, art programs, etc. • Teaching to the test, not teaching for learning • Gives future teachers little creativity in the teaching process • NCLB has escalated pressure on teachers to a stressful level, negatively affecting staff morale • Delayed feedback

10. Is it working? • Nation’s Report Card in July 2005, stated that achievement in reading and math are at all time highs and achievement gap is closing • 4th graders who learned their fundamental math skills increased by 235,000

11. Basketball Meets AYP