ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS

1. ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS

2. Adequate Yearly Progress • Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), • Is part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) • makes schools accountable to students, their parents, teachers, and the community. • The purpose of AYP is to ensure that all students have reading and math skills that prepare them for the future. • This law states that all students must reach the Proficient level or higher in Reading or Language Arts and Mathematics by 2014.

3. Adequate Yearly Progress • Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), • School districts and schools must show Adequate Yearly Progress on several measurable indicators: • Attendance or Graduation Rate, • Academic Performance, and • Test Participation.

4. Adequate Yearly Progress • AYP targets measure whether a school or district is making sufficient annual progress towards the goal of 100% proficiency. • District targets are assessed in three grade spans: • Grades 3–5, • Grades 6–8, and • Grades 9–12. . Grades 3–5, 6–8

5. What does AYP Measure? • AYP measures student results for three indicators, as illustrated– • Attendance (for schools without a High School graduating class) or Graduation Rate (for schools with a High School graduating class); • Academic Performance; and • Test Participation.

6. What does AYP Measure? • AYP requires that all groups of children reach proficiency in Reading or Language Arts and Mathematics – hence the phrase "no child left behind".

7. What does AYP Measure? • These groups include all: • racial and ethnic backgrounds, • students who are English Language Learners, • economically disadvantaged students • special education students. • (When these subgroups contain fewer than 40 students the subgroup is not separately evaluated for AYP).

8. What does AYP Measure? • States determine AYP performance targets based on students' standardized test scores each year. • (PDE) uses the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) to determine AYP performance. • As measured by the PSSA, students' scores fall into one of four levels: • Advanced (highest) • Proficient • Basic • Below Basic (lowest)

9. What are the Targets for School AYP? • Attendance or Graduation Rate: • The Attendance target is 90%, or any improvement from the previous year. • Attendance applies to schools that do not have a high school graduating class, and the rate is based on the entire school. • The Graduation Rate target is 80%, or any improvement from the previous year. • The Graduation Rate applies to schools that have a high school graduating class, and includes only students enrolled as members of that class.

10. What are the Targets for School AYP? • Achieving Proficiency (Academic Performance):Schools' AYP state targets are the percentage of students that must meet or exceed scores at the proficient level in Mathematics and Reading. • The PA state targets for this school year (2007-08) were 56% of students scoring at Proficient or higher in Mathematics and 63% of students scoring at Proficient or higher in Reading. • Through 2010, these targets remain the same. In 2011, these targets will increase to 67% of students scoring at Proficient or higher in Mathematics and 72% of students scoring at Proficient or higher in Reading.

11. What are the Targets for School AYP? • Achieving Proficiency (Academic Performance): • These percentages will increase gradually until the year 2014 when the target will be set at 100% of students scoring at Proficient or higher in Mathematics and Reading. • NCLB allows schools to meet their proficiency targets by "Safe Harbor". Safe Harbor states that if a school achieves a 10% decrease of students who scored below Proficient from the previous year, it meets the AYP target for proficiency. • The proficiency rate is based on only those students enrolled for the full academic year (enrolled as of October 1, 2007), who completed the test, and who are not first year "English Language Learners" students.

12. What are the Targets for School AYP? • Taking the Test (Test Participation): • At least 95% of students overall and within each subgroup must take the test. • The participation rate is based on those students enrolled as of the last day of the assessment window (March 30, 2008), regardless of whether or not those students were enrolled for a full academic year.

13. What are the Targets for School AYP? • District AYP uses all the individual student data from the district (not school level results) and organizes them into three distinct grade spans. • By contrast, PA school targets are based on all tested grades in the school. This means that the district level has potentially three times the number of targets as the school level, and the district does not need to meet every target to meet AYP. Only one grade span needs to be met to satisfy goals for either Academic Performance or Test Participation in the two subjects. All subgroup targets within the grade span must be met in order for the grade span to meet AYP.

14. How can an AYP target be met? • Overall, a school or district either meets or does not meet AYP. While it only takes one missed target to "Not Make AYP", (indicated by a: " Group did not meet target") there are several ways to meet AYP targets: • " Group met target": indicates that the AYP target was met for the school or district overall, or that a group met AYP by reaching the state target. • " Group met target using Confidence Interval": indicates that a group met AYP by the state target criteria only when using a 95% Confidence Interval. • " Group met target using Safe Harbor": indicates that a group met AYP by the Safe Harbor improvement criteria, which require a reduction of 10% from the previous year in the percentage of students who scored below Proficient.

15. How can an AYP target be met? • " Group met target using Safe Harbor with Confidence Interval": indicates that a group met AYP by the Safe Harbor improvement criteria only when using a 75% Confidence Interval. • " Group met target using Pennsylvania Performance Index": indicates that a group met AYP by meeting the criteria for PPI growth. This criteria is set by the state. • " Group met target using an Appeal": indicates that a group met AYP by appeal. This is generally based on extenuating circumstances, as outlined below. • " Group met target using Proxy": indicates that the IEP group met the target after 13 percentage points were added to the percent of proficient students. This was done as a proxy for students who will be eligible to take a new modified alternative assessment.

16. What Does it Mean to Meet AYP by Safe Harbor • A school or district can meet AYP targets through a provision called Safe Harbor, which is a measure of improvement in test performance. • Safe Harbor is achieved when a subgroup has greatly improved since the previous year–even though they did not meet the state target. • (The measure for Safe Harbor improvement is at least a 10% reduction over the previous year of the percentage of students who scored below Proficient for reading or mathematics). Please note that this metric will not be listed if the school or district met 2007-08 AYP targets without the Safe Harbor provision.

17. What Does it Mean to Meet AYP Target by Appeal • Preliminary reports on school and district 2008 AYP status were available as of July 1, 2008. School files and appeal based on concerns and it is judged based on its merit • If the school or district believed that the proposed identification was in error for statistical or other substantive reasons, the school or district was allowed to provide supporting evidence to the Bureau of Assessment and Accountability at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. • This year, schools and districts also had the opportunity to correct coding errors in the data themselves. • Final determinations on appeals were made prior to the public release of this report. When AYP targets for schools or districts have been met by appeal, this is indicated in the report.

18. What is a Confidence Interval • The confidence interval is the range where you expect something to be. By saying "expect" you live open the possibility of being wrong. The degree of confidence measures the probability of that expectation to be true. • The degree of confidence is linked with the width of the confidence interval. It's easy to be very confident that something will be within a very wide range, and vice versa. Also, the amount of information (typically related with the sample size) has an influence on the degree of confidence and the width of the confidence interval. With more information you will be more confident that "the thing" will be within a given interval. Also, with more information, and keeping a given degree of confidence, you can narrow the interval.

19. What is a Confidence Interval • example: • In a given city a survey is made. The question is: "Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi?" 60% answer Coke, and 40% answer Pepsi. So an estimation is that, in this city, 60% prefer Coke. Does it means that 60% of the population in this city prefer Coke? No unless the survey had been answered by all the population. • However, you can be somehow "confident" that the actual proportion of people choosing Coke will be within some interval around the 60% found in the sample. How confident? How wide is the interval?

20. What is a Confidence Interval • example: continued • If the survey had been on a sample of 1000 persons instead of 100, you could be 90% confident that the actual proportion is between 57.5% and 62.5% (compare with 52% and 68% for the same confidence with a sample of 100. Larger sample, narrower interval for the same degree of confidence). And you could be 99.99998% (let's say 100%?) confident that the actual proportion will be between 52% and 68% (compare with a degree of confidence of 90% for the same interval with a sample of 100. Larger sample, better degree of confidence for the same interval). And all that without a single formula.

21. How is the Confidence Interval (C.I.) used in AYP decisions? • Confidence intervals take into account the fact that the students tested in any particular year might not be representative of students in that school across the years. • Confidence intervals control for this sampling error or variation across years by promoting schools or subgroups that come very close to achieving their annual thresholds, thus meeting their specific AYP Targets. • In 2004, the United States Department of Education approved a 95% Confidence Interval (C.I.) in Pennsylvania for AYP performance calculations. Forty-six states currently use C.I.s in determining AYP. A 95% C.I. can be used for meeting the state proficiency target, while a 75% C.I. can be used for meeting the Safe Harbor target.

22. Why do some schools and districts need to meet more targets than others? • Schools and districts need to meet AYP targets for Academic Performance and Test Participation in the grade levels used for calculations. • Results for subgroups are used only when there are 40 or more students in the group (although a school with fewer than 40 students is still accountable at the overall level). • Thus, while NCLB defines 41 possible AYP criteria to meet, most schools and districts in Pennsylvania do not have enough students to make all of these targets applicable.

23. What are the AYP status levels? • AYP reports the performance of schools and districts in status levels that depend on the school or district's performance in recent years. The key that indicates the AYP status levels from highest to lowest is shown below: • Made AYP • Making Progress • Warning • School Improvement I • School Improvement II • Corrective Action I • Corrective Action II

24. What happens to a school if it meets AYP targets? • There are two possibilities for schools that meet AYP targets this year, depending on their previous year's results: • Schools that met AYP targets last year, or that were at "Warning" status last year (e.g., the school did not meet AYP targets for the first time) will be on-track for meeting the NCLB goal of all students reaching proficiency by the year 2014 if they meet all AYP targets this year. • Schools that had a "School Improvement" or "Corrective Action" status last year enter a probationary period called "Making Progress". This means that the school must also meet AYP targets for a second consecutive year to be considered on-track to meet the NCLB goal. Next year, the school will receive "Made AYP" status if it meets all AYP targets again. However, if it does not meet all AYP targets for two consecutive years, the school will proceed to the next status level.

25. What happens to a school if it Does not meet AYP targets? There are both supports and consequences for schools that do not meet the targets for two consecutive years. There are three possibilities for schools that do not meet AYP targets this year, depending on their previous year's results: 1. Schools that met all AYP targets last year but did not meet all AYP targets this year are put on "Warning" status. They need to meet AYP targets next year in order to be considered on-track for meeting the NCLB goal of all students reaching proficiency by the year 2014.

26. What happens to a school if it Does not meet AYP targets? 2. Schools that had a "Making Progress" status last year either had a "School Improvement" or "Corrective Action" status from two years ago. The school may drop to the status level beneath the status from two years ago if it fails to meet targets in the same subject that caused the school to enter "Improvement" or "Corrective Action" status the year before. 3. Schools that had a "Warning", "School Improvement" or "Corrective Action" status last year may drop to the status level beneath that status based on the subject missed.

27. Which students are included in AYP reporting? • Reported AYP results may not be identical to school or district's own results. This could be for several reasons: • Certain students are not included in AYP calculations as indicated in the "School AYP" section above. • To respect student privacy, results may only be reported publicly on groups with at least ten students. Additionally, reliability is a concern as reporting on small groups can sometimes cause statistical fluctuations. The state-defined minimum number of students for reporting and accountability is set at a minimum of 40 students to satisfy reliability requirements. For additional protection of confidentiality and for increased reliability, AYP results may be based on data from this year only, or on an average of up to three years of data.