NEA: NCLB and Adequate Yearly Progress

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NCLB AYP: Fail Now or Fail Later

Study Predicts Most Great Lakes Schools Will Be 'Failing' by 2014

Most schools in the Great Lakes region will labeled "failing" by 2014, according to a study released by the Great Lakes Center for Educational Research and the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University.

"The Impact of the Adequate Yearly Progress Requirement of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act on the Great Lakes Region," is the first multi-state research to use actual state data to predict how schools will fare under the No Child Left Behind law's current Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements.

"It's fail now or fail later," said Teri Moblo, Director of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. "Under the current system, schools are destined to be labeled as failing and there is no way around it. The question isn't will schools fail, it's when will they fail.

"Without increased flexibility in the AYP requirements and a focus on the underlying reasons why students do not perform well on such tests, we will continue to invest huge amounts of time and money in a system where failure is guaranteed."

NEA Supports Bills to Improve NCLB

In a letter to members of Congress, NEA Governmental Relations Director Diane Shust and Randall Moody, Manager of Federal Policy and Politics, said, "We believe these findings make clear the need for improvements to No Child Left Behind and, specifically, to the provisions governing measurement of Adequate Yearly Progress."

They urged Senators and Representatives to support changes that would ensure "accurate measurement of school and student progress and that would enable targeting of limited resources to those areas with the greatest needs."

Results Match Analyses in Other States

The report's troubling findings mirror analyses in other states. For example:

The Virginia Department of Education and local school districts together spent 23 percent more than they reportedly received in new federal dollars to cover costs directly related to the No Child Left Behind law, according to a study. Results of the study, which said the funding gap amounted to $61 million in Virginia, were released Sept. 21, 2005.
In a report prepared for the Connecticut Education Association, 93 percent of schools were projected to fail AYP.
The California Department of Education has projected a 99 percent failure rate.
A study released this July by Communities for Quality Education found that 77 percent of Pennsylvania schools will fail AYP over the next decade.
A Massachusetts study released earlier this year projected a 75 percent failure rate.

Report Includes State-by-State Projections

Regardless of the growth expectations set by the Great Lakes states, the research findings are clear: Approximately 95 percent of the schools in the Great Lakes region will be labeled "failing" by 2014. The state-by-state predictions are:

Indiana: Under the best case scenario, it is projected that 54 percent of schools will fail by 2014. Under a more realistic scenario, 80 to 85 percent of schools will fail.

Wisconsin: Under the best case scenario in, it is projected that over half of the schools will fail by 2014. Under a more realistic scenario, 84 percent of schools will fail.

Ohio: Under the best case scenario, it is projected that almost half of the schools will fail by 2014. Under a more realistic scenario, nearly 80 percent of schools will fail.

Minnesota: It is projected that 85 percent of schools will fail by 2014.

Michigan: Under the best case scenario, it is projected that half of the schools will fail by 2014. Under a more realistic scenario, almost every school will fail.

Illinois: Under the most optimistic scenario, it is projected that over 65 percent of schools will fail by 2014. Under a more realistic scenario, that number is closer to 85 percent.

Researchers Suggest Ways to Increase Student Learning

The study goes on to recommend ways to increase student learning and improve AYP results:

Develop programs that include families, community, and health providers, and that strengthen childcare, early education, summer and after-school activities, and technical education, among other vital and essential services.

Dedicate adequate funding for remediation and social infrastructure, to overcome disparities and meet student educational needs.

Create realistic, comprehensive school evaluation systems that involve a variety of evaluation methods.

Set realistic standards linked to external expectations and grounded in research.

Use aggressive confidence intervals and subgroup sizes to measure rates of growth.

Modify the standards and growth expectations for special education, non-English speaking, and migratory students.

The authors, Edward C. Wiley, University of Colorado-Boulder; William J. Mathis, University of Vermont; and David R. Garcia, Arizona State University, assessed how much gain schools made in 2003-2004 and used these data along with each state's established growth expectations to predict how many schools will meet the federal requirement of 100 percent proficiency on state high-stakes tests by 2014.