The U.S. Department of Education in late July approved a New Jersey request that will provide additional flexibility and help ensure statistical validity in calculating Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for schools and districts under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

At the same time, the federal government rejected two other changes related to NCLB reporting that were requested by state Commissioner of Education Lucille  E. Davy. They involved allowing alternative assessments for a larger percentage of students with disabilities and increasing the minimum number of students who must belong to a certain subgroup before that subgroup’s test results would count toward a school’s and district’s AYP.

NJSBA had strongly advocated the three requested changes.

Confidence Intervals The U.S. Department of Education approved the establishment of confidence intervals when calculating a school’s or school district’s AYP. Confidence intervals are ranges that ensure statistical validity; their use will allow leeway in the percentage of students who must score at proficient levels in order for a school to make AYP.

Confidence intervals also would be applied when giving a school “safe harbor”—the designation provided to a school that has not met AYP benchmarks, but which has recorded significant gains in the number of students scoring at proficiency levels on state tests.

N-Size Change The federal government rejected Davy’s request to increase the minimum number of students who must belong to a certain subgroup before that subgroup’s test results would count toward a school or district AYP. New Jersey’s minimum number, or “n-size,” is 20 for all subgroups except students with disabilities. (The “students with disabilities” subgroup has an n-size of 35.) New Jersey’s n-sizes are lower than those for other states, including neighboring New York and Pennsylvania, both of which have n-sizes of 40 students.

Under NCLB, a certain percentage of the total student body must score at proficient levels on state tests in order for a school to be deemed as making AYP. In addition, that same percentage is applied to each subgroup within the school and district. These subgroups include economically disadvantaged students, limited English proficient students, and students of various racial and ethnic groups.

In New Jersey, if any subgroup (other than students with disabilities) has 20 or more students, its test results count toward AYP. The lower n-size in New Jersey makes it possible for test results of only a fraction of students to result in an entire school being designated as not making AYP.

Students with Disabilities The federal government also rejected Davy’s request to take advantage of additional flexibility with regard to testing students with disabilities. The law allows the state to exempt 1 percent of students with severe cognitive disabilities from standardized testing, provided that they take an alternative assessment. The U.S. Department of Education provides some states the additional flexibility of offering an alternate proficiency assessment to an additional 2 percent of students who have less severe disabilities.

Federal regulations restrict the 2 percent flexibility to states that apply a uniform n-size to all subgroups. Because New Jersey has two n-sizes (35 for students with disabilities and 20 for all other subgroups), its request was not approved.

For more information about the No Child Left Behind Act, or to get involved in NJSBA’s federal advocacy efforts, contact the NJSBA Governmental Relations Department toll free at (888) 5722, ext. 5215.