No Child Left Behind Data Reporting VBCPS Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Released This year marks the first time schools divisions across the country will report division-wide and individual school success in making adequate yearly progress (AYP) as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. It is widely accepted that in this first reporting year, some schools and school divisions, while doing well in high-stakes standardized testing such as Standards of Learning, still may not meet AYP. Such is the case with Virginia Beach City Public Schools. While approximately 95 percent of the system's schools are anticipated to meet full accreditation standards, in contrast, 76 percent of its schools from school year 2002-2003 have made AYP as projected by the state. "A smaller percentage of schools making AYP than full accreditation was not unexpected," said Diane Jones, Assistant Superintendent of Accountability, the department that oversees the division's compliance with NCLB. "Similar to the early days of Standards of Learning implementation, we knew there would be an implementation curve. Across the country, school districts have been working hard to become familiar with the requirements of NCLB and to develop appropriate strategies to meet its mandates. With any new program, you expect it is going to take time to move to a position of mastery. It is important to note that not making AYP does not mean a school is a failing school. Rather, AYP is simply another measure of school success as delineated by federal legislation." For a school or school division to make AYP under the federal education law, it must meet or exceed 29 to 35 separate requirements including participation in statewide testing, achievement in reading and mathematics, and attendance (elementary and middle schools) or graduation (high schools). These requirements apply to all students as a group as well as to these subgroups: students with disabilities, limited English proficient students, economically disadvantaged students, and major racial/ethnic groups (Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic). A school or school division that falls short in a single requirement is not considered to have made AYP. At the division level, Virginia Beach's limited English proficient students as a subgroup did not meet the participation requirements for English and mathematics testing. Consequently, the division did not meet AYP, although it met all other requirements for all other subgroups and the total testing population. "Although the division did not meet AYP, we are very pleased that 76 percent of our schools did make AYP. We are hopeful when statewide data is released, Virginia Beach will prove to be ahead of the curve," said Jones. Jones said that it is likely that the public will find it hard to understand why individual schools are performing so well on the state-mandated Standards of Learning tests, yet falling short in achieving AYP. "While many of our schools made dramatic improvements on the SOL tests, NCLB establishes different and stringent expectations in the areas of school attendance, student participation in testing, and, of course, academic performance. It doesn't matter if a school's SOL test results are some of the highest in the state. If a school or a school division falls short in just one of many benchmarks, it does not make AYP," she said. "As an example, Virginia Beach Middle School met all achievement requirements for all students and for each of the subgroups. However, its school-wide attendance rate was 93 percent and the benchmark was 94 percent. Therefore, the school did not meet AYP. School divisions are at the beginning of this process and will continue to assess the data to improve performance across the board. " ###

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