NCLB-AYP

=No Child Left Behind-Adequate Yearly Progress=

History
Understanding where education will be going in the next five years requires an idea of where it has been.



Currently the state of Illinois has a set of learning standards written in 1997 under the auspices of the Illinois State Board of Education. These learning standards include grades pre-K through 12 and the breadth of content from science to the arts. Assessing the effectiveness of the teaching and learning of the standards has occurred via Illinois Standardized Achievement Tests, ISATs.

No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was enacted in 2001. It is the latest revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. Since 2002 states have been required to test all students in grades 3-8 every year in both English/language arts and math. Illinois has dabbled with testing other content areas including science and writing. For the 2011-2012 school year 4th and 7th graders will take a science test.

Currently the ISAT is taken within a two-week window, usually in early March. Each grade level has a multiple page testing booklet and a “fill-in-the-bubble” answer sheet. Schools usually have adjusted schedules for a week while all students take 5-6 tests. The following week is dedicated to having students make up tests they missed. Then boxes upon boxes of testing booklets and answers sheets are packed up and sent to the Illinois State Board of Education for scoring.

Districts usually receive the results of the tests about six months later. The data is aggregated in many helpful ways: by district, by school, by grade-level, by gender as well as ethnic or racial categories, income status, English-language proficiency, and student disability.

The NCLB Act is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Many positive changes have come about because of this law. The main benefit, as its name implies, is that districts are now much more accountable for the performance of their weakest students. Reporting mechanisms such as Illinois Interactive Report Card allow not only districts but the public to see how well, or poorly, their schools are serving different student groups. As an example a district with excellent overall scores would have been lauded in the past. By breaking student data down, though, they may find that several smaller student groups, say, students with limited-English proficiency or multiracial/ethnic students are way behind their peers. Districts do not want to put out the message that they are failing any subgroup so are making herculean efforts to raise the scores of these students.

Before No Child Left Behind was enacted students were tested in math in grades 3, 5, and 8. This gave schools some flexibility in deciding how to sequence the curriculum. Once NCLB became law--with its yearly tests, reporting requirements, and negative consequences--districts placed much more importance on aligning their curricula to match the year-by-year state standards. One negative result of this can be seen in the math curriculum.

Math standards are broken down into five goals and scores of sub-goals. The current standards move the bar forward for each of those sub-goals each year. Because students have to touch on so many diverse topics the lessons are rushed in order to “cover the material.” When the lessons are so rushed there is not enough time to learn the topics well. Conceptual understanding and making connections to other mathematical topics is given short shrift and instead students are taught the most efficient algorithm to complete the task. There is not enough time to absorb the material or apply the mathematics in interesting, and possibly cross-curricular, ways. When students memorize rules instead of the meaning beneath retention and transfer (the ability to apply the concept to other tasks) is truly horrible.

The negative effects of this cannot be overstated. When retention is so weak teachers must review or reteach last year’s content before moving on to this year’s lesson. This is very frustrating to both students and teachers. Students will get lessons in perimeter and area EVERY YEAR from grades 3 through 8. In many cases they still do not understand the idea that unit of measure for area is units squared.

Even when teachers and administrators recognized this problem their hands were tied because of the structure of the yearly test.

Adequate Yearly Progress
The results of these standardized tests in Illinois, and indeed most other states, have very high stakes from home values to federal scrutiny to educator pay. The No Child Left Behind legislation states that every student must be achieving at grade level by 2014. Schools that do not make adequate yearly progress toward this goal face sanctions. Schools are under enormous pressure to meet these standards.

In the state of Illinois a student has met standards on the ISAT if they answer between 38-50% of the questions correctly (depending on the content area and the grade level). When it comes to setting standards for our students the bar is currently quite low.

Since the law was enacted the expectation for the percentage of students to meet or exceed state standards on the ISAT has been steadily increasing. For the ISAT that will be taken during the 2011-2012 school year 92.5% of students are expected to meet or exceed standards.

According to the latest data available from the 2011 test 77% of students in the state meet or exceed standards. That doesn't sound too bad. Remember, though, that according to NCLB in 2011 85% of Illinois' students should be succeeding. (//Illinois Interactive Report Card, 2011//)

When separating out the mathematics scores the information is a little bit more nuanced. 81% of students meet or exceed standards. A bit more teasing out reveals that for the ISAT, grades 3-8, 86% of students are succeeding whereas on the PSAE test, taken during junior year, only 51% of math students meet or exceed standards.

Each state was allowed to create its own criteria for how many students are needed to become an official subgroup for a school or district. In Illinois if a school has 45 or more students that fit into any of the categories they are an official subgroup for the school. Subgroup categories include racial identification such as Asian, black, Hispanic, white, and mutiracial. Additional subgroups include students who are limited English proficient (LEP), students with disabilities, and students who are economically disadvantaged. Students can count in more than one category.

For the state as a whole, only 32% of schools made adequate yearly progress. How about districts? 19.8%. Only eight high schools in Illinois made adequate yearly progress based on the the results of the 2011 tests.



Even generally socioeconomically secure districts in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with meet and exceed averages over 95% are considered failures because subgroups with challenges--students that have limited English proficiency (LEP), students with disabilities, and/or economically disadvantaged students--are not meeting performance targets. It is obvious that expecting 100% of the students to be proficient is unattainable

There has been some leeway granted for districts and schools that have subgroups that are not yet meeting standards but are making significant progress. The Safe Harbor Provision states

//The state, school districts and schools may still make AYP if each subgroup that fails to reach its proficiency performance targets reduces its percentage of students not meeting standards by 10% of the previous year's percentage, plus the subgroup must meet the attendance rate or graduation rate targets//. (//ISBE.net//)


 * = [[image:AYP-IL.png width="364" height="192" caption="Click to see the full IL flowchart." link="@http://iirc.niu.edu/PDF/school_imp_ill_law.pdf"]] ||= [[image:AYP-US.png width="360" height="192" caption="Click to see the full US flow chart." link="@http://iirc.niu.edu/PDF/school_imp_fed_law.pdf"]] ||

Districts that accept Title I funding from the federal government have even stricter sanctions. To qualify for Title I, a school typically will have around 40% or more of its students come from families who qualify under the United States Census's definitions as low-income.

//Title I schools that do not make AYP for two consecutive years are placed in School Improvement Status and must offer Choice. Title I schools that do not make AYP for three consecutive years must offer both Choice and Supplemental Educational Services (SES). If those schools miss making AYP for a fourth consecutive year, they are designated as being in Corrective Action and must choose among several remediation strategies outlined in federal law. A fifth year of missing AYP results in a restructuring planning year and then a sixth year of missing AYP requires that the restructuring plan be implemented. (ISBE.net)//

The system for offering and providing Supplemental Education Services (SES) to parents in a school district is very structured. The districts must set aside a portion of their Title I money to pay these providers. All vendors that have been approved by the state and want the opportunity to provide services to students in a district attend a vendor fair. Parents can wander around booths, hear presentations, and ask questions. Parents then list their first three choices. Many vendors provide tutoring right in the schools as an after school option.

The state collects data from parent surveys and student progress. The latest data posted, from 2009-2010 school year, show that the services have an extremely limited effect on student success. Considering how much is spent in the way of time and money and resources to offer and provide these services to families there is minimal benefit. In the latest report available the positive effect sizes of the math supplemental services offered to Illinois students that were not in the Chicago Public School system were extremely weak. Effect sizes ranged from moderate (0.14-Educate Online (previously Catapult Online)) to very small (0.01-Brain Hurricane, LLC and Huntington Learning Centers, Inc.). Positive effect sizes are not considered truly significant until they reach the 0.40 level.

Reauthorization
In general when Congress passes a law it is not permanent. Laws will expire within five years if they are not revisited. On September 30, 2007 the NCLB law expired. Until a new bill is passed the current law is extended.

It was hoped that President Obama and Congress would work together to reauthorize NCLB and make some adjustments to the law’s more onerous expectations and consequences. The last couple of years have not seen much in the way of bipartisan collaboration. Reauthorization is unlikely. In order to prevent punishing districts that have weak scores in a few subgroups the Department of Education has proposed a system of waivers as a stopgap measure. As of December, 2011 eleven states have applied for waivers.

//To gain a waiver, states will have to adopt college- and career-ready standards and tie state tests to them, adopt a differentiated accountability system that focuses on 15 percent of their most troubled schools, and craft guidelines for teacher- and principal-evaluation systems that will be based partly on student growth and be used for personnel decisions.//

//In return, states will no longer have to face the 2014 deadline for bringing all students to proficiency in math and reading, their schools will no longer face NCLB sanctions such as providing school choice, and district officials will have more freedom to move around Title I money for disadvantaged students. (McNeil)//

Each state has asked that their waivers be applied in a different way. Most states want to loosen the regulations that tie overall performance and sanctions to poor test scores by small subgroups. All applicants also asked to do away with the requirement of providing dubious supplemental education services. Waiver results for these eleven applicants should be announced by late December, 2011. The second round of waiver applications will be due in February, 2011. Illinois is planning to apply.

Resources
//Duncan Says 82 Percent of America's Schools Could "Fail" Under NCLB This Year.// Department of Education Press Release. March 9, 2011. @http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/duncan-says-82-percent-americas-schools-could-fail-under-nclb-year

//Frequently Asked Questions About Adequate Yearly Progress, Academic Early Warning Standards, and Academic Watch Status.// Illinois State Board of Education-Adequate Yearly Progress, Frequently Asked Questions. n.d. @http://www.isbe.net/AYP/htmls/faq.htm

McNeil, Michele. //Waiver Plans Would Scrap Parts of NCLB//. Education Week. December 6, 2011. @http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/12/07/13waivers_ep-2.h31.html?qs=reauthorization

//More Illinois Schools Identified for Improvement Under No Child Left Behind Benchmarks.// Illinois State Board of Education Press Release. October 20, 2011. @http://www.isbe.state.il.us/news/2011/oct20.htm

Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary School Education Act. 2002. @http://www2.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/index.html

//What Does NCLB Reauthorization Mean?// Public Education Network. n.d. @http://www.publiceducation.org/nclb_main/Reauth_What_It_Means.asp

Zoblotsky, Todd and Huang, Ying. //Supplemental Educational Services in the State of Illinois: 2009-2010 Student Achievement Analysis//. Center for Research in Educational Policy. October, 2010. @http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ses/pdf/reports/sy10_student_achvmt_analysis.pdf