news release

New Jersey School Boards Association, 413 West State Street, P.O. Box 909, Trenton, NJ  08605-0909

Telephone: (609) 278-5202  ●  Fax: (609) 695-0413  ●  Web site: www.njsba.org/PI

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:    Frank Belluscio (fbelluscio@njsba.org)
                    Mike Yaple (myaple@njsba.org)
                    (609) 278-5202

 
  BACKGROUNDER: Local Schools’ Academic Progress under ‘No Child Left Behind’

TRENTON, September 30, 2003—Within a short time, the New Jersey State Department of Education is expected to publicly release information about schools’ and school districts’ “Adequate Yearly Progress” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The information will take the form of a new “NCLB Report Card” and will reflect student performance in language arts literacy and mathematics on the three state proficiency tests administered in the spring of 2003—the High School Proficiency Assessment (11th grade), the Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment, and NJ ASK-4 (4th grade).

NCLB is a complex law with a significant impact on public school operations. How schools fare under the act will be of considerable interest to the general public. Nonetheless, AYP results are but one of many sets of factors that reflect a school’s academic program.

To help you report on the Adequate Yearly Progress of schools in your area, the New Jersey School Boards Association has provided the following backgrounder. The document summarizes No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress targets for New Jersey’s schools and provides additional information to help the media report AYP results in accurate context.

Adequate Yearly Progress in 2003
The Impact of Subgroup Results
40 AYP Indicators
District-wide Adequate Yearly Progress
Schools ‘In Need of Improvement’
Federal Law/State Differences
Reporting on Adequate Yearly Progress
Information Sources

For further information about the federal No Child Left Behind Act and its impact on New Jersey’s public schools, call the NJSBA Public Information Department at (609) 278-5202.

Adequate Yearly Progress in 2003

Signed by President Bush in 2002, NCLB requires that all students meet state-determined proficiency levels by 2014. For New Jersey that means every single student must score at “proficient” or “advanced proficient” levels on state assessments by 2014. To reach this “100% goal,” New Jersey and other states developed incremental benchmarks—Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets. In New Jersey, the AYP targets determine the percentage of students in each school and school district—and the percentage of students in each of a number of subgroups within the school and school district—who must score at “proficient” or “advanced proficient” levels.

For 2003 and 2004, New Jersey has established the following AYP targets:

The Impact of Subgroup Results

If the entire school population—or any one of a number of subgroups—does not meet these targets, then the school has not made Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind. Subgroups will include Students with Disabilities, Limited English Proficient Students, Economically Disadvantaged Students, as well as several racial/ethnic groups. (A subgroup’s test results will be reported separately toward a school’s Adequate Yearly Progress status only if 20 or more students within a grade level belong to the subgroup.)

Additionally, to meet AYP targets 95% of students at each tested grade level and within each subgroup must take the assessment. Two other factors will determine whether or not a school or school district has achieved Adequate Yearly Progress. For 2003, these factors will be average daily attendance for elementary and middle schools and drop-out rates for high schools.

40 AYP Indicators

According to the Department of Education, 40 indicators will be used to determine if a school made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2002-03. (The number of indicators was arrived at by using the following factors: the assessments in mathematics and language arts literacy; the grade levels tested; total student population tested; student subgroups tested; test participation rates; drop-out rates and attendance rates.) The Department of Education will report to each school the number of factors in which it has achieved Adequate Yearly Progress. For example—

“Smallville High School made adequate yearly progress in 38 of 40 indicators.”

District-wide Adequate Yearly Progress

Adequate Yearly Progress status will be reported for the entire school district, as well as for individual schools. If the total student population tested district wide does not reach AYP targets—or if a subgroup of 20 or more students district wide does not reach AYP targets—then the district would be identified as not making Adequate Yearly Progress.

Schools ‘In Need of Improvement’

Schools that do not make AYP for two consecutive years in the same content area (i.e., mathematics or language arts literacy) will be labeled “in need of improvement.” If they are schools that receive federal Title 1 funds, their students must be offered the opportunity to transfer to another school in the district that is not “in need of improvement.” In the future, Title 1 schools in need of improvement will be subject to a progressive series of requirements if they continue to miss AYP targets. These requirements would include providing “supplemental services,” such as after-school tutoring or summer programs, undergoing corrective action by the state, and restructuring of staff and programs.

Previously, the state Department of Education identified 259 New Jersey schools as being “in need of improvement” based on initial fourth- and eighth-grade test results for all students and weighed against criteria contained in a previous federal law, the Improving America’s Schools Act. After reviewing 2001-02 test results, the state removed nine schools from the list. When the state releases the NCLB School Report Cards with 2003 test data, there might be a small number of middle and elementary schools added to the “in need of improvement” list.

Federal Law/State Differences

Although No Child Left Behind is a federal law, it leaves implementation of its provisions to the 50 states, resulting in wide variations in benchmarks.

• The federal law requires states to set academic standards. However, individual states determine exactly what those standards will be.
• The federal law requires testing students in mathematics, reading and, starting in 2007-08, science. However, the tests are developed or identified by the individual states.
• The law requires measurement of test results for a number of student subgroups to determine a school’s or a school district’s Adequate Yearly Progress. However, individual states establish the minimum number of students needed for a subgroup’s test scores to count toward AYP targets. Most states set this minimum at 30 students; New Jersey set the minimum at 20. The result: in New Jersey, subgroup test results can affect the AYP status of a greater number of schools and school districts.

These differences in academic standards, testing instruments and other policy decisions among the states should be kept in mind when reporting on New Jersey schools’ Adequate Yearly Progress.

Reporting on Adequate Yearly Progress

No Child Left Behind represents unprecedented federal involvement in public education. It is a complex law. To keep its provisions—especially Adequate Yearly Progress—in accurate context, reporting cannot be oversimplified.

• Your readers will want to know why a school did not make AYP—but they should also know about the indicators in which a school attained Adequate Yearly Progress.
• Your readers will want to know the school district’s plan of action to help students reach proficiency levels—but they should also know the extent of progress made to date, even if the school did not reach AYP targets on some indicators this year.

Moreover, there are many indicators of school progress in addition to those cited in the Adequate Yearly Progress reports. These include college attendance rates, progress of the overall student population toward education goals, progress made by special education students, school safety, and results of standardized assessments other than the state tests. These factors contribute to the complete picture of a school’s academic program—although they will not be part of the AYP reports.

Information Sources

The following Web pages provide important information about No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress:

• The New Jersey School Boards Association’s NCLB Web page: www.njsba.org/NCLB/index.htm
• The New Jersey State Department of Education’s “No Child Left Behind” section: www.nj.gov/njded/grants/nclb/
• The prototype for the NCLB Report Cards. Using 2001-02 test data, these prototype report cards illustrate how the state Department of Education will report each school’s Adequate Yearly Progress based on 2003 testing information: http://education.state.nj.us/rc/nclb.html

Additional information is available by calling the NJSBA Public Information Department at (609) 278-5202.