FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT AYP
1. What is Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)?
AYP represents the annual academic targets in reading and math and other indicators that the state, school districts and schools must reach to be considered on track with the federally mandated goal of 100% proficiency by school year 2013-2014.
2. Why does Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) exist?
AYP is part of state and federal statute. The Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB), 2001. Sec. 1111 (b)(F), states that, “Each state shall establish a timeline for adequate yearly progress. The timeline shall ensure that no later than 12 years after the 2001-2002 school year all students in each group described in subparagraph (C)(v) will meet or exceed the state’s proficient level of academic achievement on the state’s assessments.”
3. Who has to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)?
• School districts
• Schools
• Subgroups within schools. The subgroups are:1) All Students
2) African American
3) Asian/Pacific
4) Caucasian
5) Hispanic
6) Native American
7) Economically Disadvantaged
8) Students with Disabilities who have IEPs (Individual Education Plan)
9) English Language Learners
4. Can a given student be included in more than one subgroup?
Yes. For example, a Caucasian student who also receives free lunch would be counted in the All Students, Caucasian, and Economically Disadvantaged groups.
5. What happens if a school does not make AYP?
If a school does not make AYP in the same area (e.g. in math, or reading) for two consecutive years, then the school receives an NCLB designation as a School In Need of Improvement (SINOI). There are five levels of improvement that carry progressive requirements for monitoring and enhancement.
6. How can schools be removed from improvement status?
If a school makes AYP for two consecutive years, that school will no longer be in need of improvement, and any improvement designations will be removed.
7. What do schools have to do in order to make AYP?
Schools need to:
a) Achieve a 95% participation rate on state assessments
b) Reach targets for proficiency
c) Reach targets for one other indicator – for elementary and middle schools that is
the attendance rate, and for high schools it is the cohort graduation rate
8. What groups must achieve the 95% participation rate?
Participation rates are calculated for all schools that have 40 or more students. In addition, each subgroup with 40 or more students must meet the target of 95% participating in the standards based assessment.
9. If any participation rate (school-wide or subgroup) for a school is below 95% can it still make AYP?
No.
10. Which assessments count toward proficiency and participation?
The NM Standards Based Assessment (NMSBA) has been used since 2004-2005, and was designed to assess whether students meet grade-specific standards developed by New Mexico professionals. The New Mexico Alternate Performance Assessment (NMAPA) was similarly designed for special education students who meet qualifications for specialized testing.
11. Who must be tested?
All public school students enrolled in grades 3-8, and 11 must participate. The school year 2006-2007 was the last year that 9th graders were tested. Assessment is not required for home and private schooled students.
12. Will the AYP proficiency targets stay the same over time?
No. The proficiency targets Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs) increase over time as we work towards the goal of 100% proficiency by 2014. At a minimum, a federally mandated increase must occur every 3 years.
States were allowed to set achievement goals by grade span or by grade. NM utilizes grade spans and because of this, there are several different sets of Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO’s) for each grade span. Basically the AMO that a school uses is determined by whether they are K-5, K-6, K-8 or 6-8, etc.
Laguna Elementary falls under K-5 grade span; therefore the AMO is as follows:
Year |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
Reading |
49% |
59% |
63% |
67% |
77% |
81% |
90% |
100% |
| Math | 33% |
44% |
50% |
57% |
68% |
79% |
89% |
100% |
Laguna Middle School falls under the 6-8 grade span, therefore the AMO is as follows:
Year |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
Reading |
42% |
53% |
57% |
61% |
72% |
76% |
89% |
100% |
| Math | 20% |
35% |
41% |
48% |
63% |
74% |
85% |
100% |
13. How was the proficiency starting points established?
The NCLB Act prescribed the process for determining starting points for reading and math. Baselines for New Mexico students were established using these steps:
1. Schools were ranked from lowest to highest based upon assessment performance in school year 2003-2004.
2. Beginning with the lowest ranked school, the enrollment for each school was added to the enrollment of the next higher performing school. This continued until 20% of the statewide enrollment had been reached.
3. The starting point became the rate (percentage) of students who scored proficient for the school at that level.
14. How is proficiency defined for the purpose of determining AYP?
Assessments rank students as Beginning Step, Nearing Proficient, Proficient, or Advanced Proficient. Students achieving Proficient or Advanced Proficient are considered proficient for AYP and a rate is calculated for the school and district. Proficiency is computed for subgroups only if they have 25 or more students.
15. How are the AYP end points established?
The NCLB goal is to have 100% of all students proficient by school year 2013-2014. During the intervening years, AYP targets (AMOs) are set to help us move toward meeting that goal. The path to the 100% end point for different schools is viewable on the NMPED website.
16. Do all groups and schools have to meet the same targets?
All schools of the same configuration (grades taught in the school) have to meet the same proficiency targets.
17. What are the targets for schools that do not have one of the tested grades?
New Mexico tests students only in grades 3-8, and 11. However NCLB statute requires that all schools receive an AYP rating, even if they do not have a tested grade. A Feeder School method is used to assign scores from alumnae of the feeder school to compute AYP. For example a kindergarten-only school (feeder school) will receive the rating and designation from their exited students in grade 3. Where exited students cannot be found in the tested population, district ratings are given to the school.
18. Which students count for proficiency?
Only students who are continuously enrolled in the school for a full academic year (FAY) are counted. FAY is defined as continuous enrollment in the same school from test cycle to test cycle (e.g. Spring 2008 to Spring 2009).
19. What about students whose parents refuse to let their children take the test?
Those students are included as non-participants when determining AYP participation rates for a school. The students also do not receive a valid score for the assessment, which is considered below proficiency. Therefore these students will adversely affect a school’s ability to meet AYP.
20. How do I calculate the proficiency rate for a school?
Use the following formula:
1. Numerator: The number of students scoring proficient or advanced, who were enrolled for a full academic year (FAY).
2. Denominator: The total number of FAY students tested.
3. Divide the numerator by the denominator. The result is the school’s AYP proficiency rate.
4. This rate is calculated separately for reading and for math.
21. How do I calculate the proficiency rate for a subgroup?
For any subgroup (other than the All Students subgroup) with 25 or more students enrolled for a full academic year, repeat steps in the prior question.
22. Do schools have to reach AYP targets in both reading and math to make AYP?
Yes, all schools must meet both targets, regardless of the size of the school. Separate AYP determinations are made for reading and math that reflect the school’s meeting proficiency and participation targets. If the school does not make AYP in either reading or math, the school will not make AYP.
23. Do all subgroups have to reach their proficiency target in reading and math in order to make AYP?
Yes. All subgroups of 25 or more FAY students must meet their respective AYP target. If a subgroup does not make AYP in math, the school will not make AYP in math, and the school will not make AYP.
24. Do subgroups have different targets?
All subgroups are held to the same AYP proficiency standard for the school. Differences occur only because of the size of the subgroup. When groups are very small, computations take this into account and adjust the acceptable target boundary. The boundary is indicated on reports as the “Lower Bound Confidence Interval,” and the formula for its calculation appears at the end of this document.
25. What is the “other academic indicator”?
In addition to reading and math, every school must meet AYP targets in one other academic indicator. For schools with a 12th grade, that indicator is their overall cohort graduation rate. For schools that do not have a 12th grade, attendance is the indicator.
26. Must schools reach their target for the “other academic indicator” to make AYP?
Yes. Just like reading and math, the other indicator is rated separately for AYP. If a school does not meet their target for the other indicator, they do not make AYP.
27. What is the target for attendance?
The target for attendance rate is 92.0%.
28. How do I calculate attendance?
All students in kindergarten through 8th grades are included in the calculation, except in cases where these grades are not present (i.e. a 9th grade academy) and then all available grades are used. The calculation uses these steps:
1) All students ever enrolled up to the 120th day of school are included
2) For each student take the number of days enrolled (ENROLLED)
3) For each student take the number of days attended (ATTENDED)
4) For each student compute ATTENDED divided by ENROLLED
5) Average the numbers from step 4, and multiply by 100 to get the percentage
29. How was the target for attendance established?
The attendance target was negotiated with the federal government when AYP was first established.
30. How are graduation rates calculated?
Governor Richardson announced the next generation of Making Schools Work education reform initiatives: Graduate New Mexico! It’s Everybody’s Business. His announcement today – the first of several initiatives to be unveiled during the next several weeks – is designed to bring back 10,000 dropouts, address the achievement gap, and improve graduation rates in New Mexico.
“To sustain New Mexico’s growing economy and workforce, all New Mexican’s must at the very least graduate from high school. We must accept that in the 21st century, to secure a job that will support a family and provide a decent quality of life, a high school diploma is a must,” said Governor Richardson.
In 2005 the National Governors Association convened a Task Force to make recommendations on how states could measure graduation rates in a way that was comparable across states and was based on high-quality, student-level longitudinal data. The resulting recommendation, ultimately agreed to by all 50 governors, was for all states to calculate a high school graduation rate based on the following formula:
__________________________________________________________
.
[(first time 9th graders in year X-4) + (transfers in) – (transfers out)]
This graduation rate applies to students who receive standard diplomas, not certificates of completion or attendance, nor General Educational Development (GED) certificates.
31. What is the 1% Cap?
School districts and states are limited to the number of proficient scores generated by the alternate assessment for significantly cognitively disabled students. The limitation of 1% of the tested population is applied to students who scored at the proficient level on the New Mexico Alternate Performance Assessment (NMAPA). Districts that exceed this cap will have 1% of their NMAPA proficient scores randomly selected and applied to AYP calculations at the district levels. This cap is not applied at the school level and does not change a student’s score.
32. What is Safe Harbor?
Safe harbor is an opportunity for a school to show growth for subgroups that did not make AYP. If a subgroup did not show AYP by meeting the proficiency target (by percent proficient or the confidence interval) a school may demonstrate that the subgroup made AYP by all other measures (participation, attendance/graduation rate) and has diminished the proportion of non- proficient students in that subgroup by 10%.
33. What is a Confidence Interval?
A confidence interval is a statistical test applied to make AYP judgments more reliable by taking into account small fluctuations in test scores; an easy-to-understand example: if the school’s reading goal is to have 50 percent of its students at grade level, without a confidence interval, the school must have at least half its students reach that standard to make AYP. A “close but not quite” outcome of 48 percent of the students at grade level would mean the school didn’t make AYP. When a confidence interval is applied, it allows the school to receive credit for those “close” outcomes, particularly when the decision is based on smaller groups of students.
Confidence Interval Formula
Where:
n = the number of students
z = the critical value (PED is using a 99% confidence level, so z= 2.33)
p = AYP target (Annual AYP Goal), expressed as a proportion (e.g.,
.3370)
q = 1-pSource: Statistical Methods in Education and Psychology, Glass and Hopkins 1996
