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2008-09 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Results: Many More SchoolsFail in Most States

 

(October 20, 2008)

In virtually every state that has released AYP results this school year (results based on 2007-08 tests that determine status for schools for the 2008-09 school year), the number of schools failing to make AYP has increased, dramatically so in many cases. In several states, the rate at which schools are failing AYP doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled. NEA is tracking this information as states release it.

These results are not unexpected. AYP forces all states, school districts, and schools on a march to 100% proficiency by 2013-14. Each state had to establish a trajectory setting out for each year the percentage of students who must score proficient or higher on the state's reading and math test. Those proficiency percentages, or AYP thresholds, must increase over time to reach the 100% mandate. States do not have to raise the bar every year, but must do so at least once every three years. This is one of the years in which every state raised the bar to make AYP.

In addition, several states set their AYP trajectory so that much larger yearly rates of increases in the percentage of students who must be proficient occur in the last half of the 12-year path toward the required 100 percent proficient level. These “balloon payments” are likely to result in even larger rates of schools failing AYP in the next several years.

Indeed, several states that have conducted projections of AYP results in the year 2013-13 predict that between 75 and 99 percent of all school will fail AYP. A just-published analysis in the scholarly journal Science of AYP in California showed that almost all California elementary schools would fail to meet AYP by 2014.

Examples of state AYP results:

For more information contact:
National Education Association
Beth Foley (BFoley@nea,.org) or Joel Packer (JPacker@nea.org)