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NDE State of the Schools Report for the 2008-2009 School Year
Lincoln Public Schools
NDE State of the Schools Report
for the 2008-09 school year
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
The Big Picture
Achievement of student learning is measured and reported in many ways. We give, and report information from, norm-referenced tests, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the PLAN. We report information from our students who take the ACT, the most common college entrance exam taken by Nebraska students. We summarize information from standards-based elementary report cards. Students receive grades and marks from classroom-based assessments, including assignments, quizzes, projects, and tests. We measure students’ learning of our district curriculum through a variety of assessments, including the criterion-referenced tests (CRTs). All of these pieces of data, and many others, contribute to an overall picture of the accomplishments of our students as a group and of each individual student. We use this information to make decisions about revision of curriculum, changes in instructional practices, and interventions or next steps for individual students.
Federal law requires that one measure of student achievement be reported for accountability purposes, and that is the measure of achievement of state standards. For our school district, that information comes from students’ performance on the CRTs. This information is used to compute Adequate Yearly Progress, and it’s also used to label school districts. It’s important to remember that there are many other pieces of achievement information that are not included in this report and in the resulting labels.
Our Current Reality
Several schools and the district will be identified as in need of improvement on this year’s Nebraska Department of Education State of the Schools report under the federal AYP determination. This is a result of the increasing percent of students expected to be proficient, as a total group and within every subgroup of students; it is a label we have expected from the time the NCLB law was enacted. We will continue our focus on effective instruction, rigorous curriculum, professional development for teachers and administrators, and identification and implementation of interventions for struggling students.
History and Context
Adequate Yearly Progress is the federal system for determining local school district’s progress in meeting the federal goal that all students in the country will be proficient on rigorous state standards in reading, math, and science by the year 2013-14.
Each state sets its own standards, its own method of testing students, and its own progress steps toward 100% proficiency by 2013-14.
Schools and school districts are judged by the performance of all students, and by the performance of each sub-group of students, including the following: White, Native American, African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Low income, Students with disabilities, and Students who are English Language Learners.
Only subgroups of 30 or more students are reported for AYP accountability. This results in schools and districts with diverse populations having more subgroups considered in the AYP determination than schools and districts with low diversity. It increases the likelihood that a diverse school or district will not meet the AYP target, simply because there are more groups of students that must meet the proficiency target, and therefore, a statistically greater likelihood that at least one group won’t.
In Nebraska, the percent of students who must be proficient for the school and for the district to be determined to be making adequate yearly progress increased in the 07-08 school year to approximately 80% in math and reading at elementary, middle school, and high school. The precise targets in reading are 81% in elementary and middle school and 83% in high school; in math, the targets are 83% at elementary, 79% in middle school, and 81% in high school. All students, and students in each sub-group, must have this percentage of students proficient. In addition, at least 95% of all students and students in each subgroup must be assessed.
This target will increase again in the 10-11 school year to slightly over 90% in each content area at each level for all students and for students in each sub-group.
Through the 08-09 school year, school districts in Nebraska developed their own tests of reading and math standards and reported the test results to the state. While all schools were responsible for teaching, and testing, state standards, the tests were different from district to district, as was each district’s definition of “proficient.” (This system will change with the implementation of a statewide reading test in the 09-10 school year and a statewide math test in the 10-11 school year.) One result of the Nebraska system, based on different tests in each district, is that districts cannot be validly compared using the AYP judgment.
Present Level of Performance
Lincoln Public Schools has historically set high standards for “grade level proficiency,” and has not altered those standards in the face of increasing expectations of proficiency for AYP purposes. As evidence of high grade level standards, instruction, and learning, we can look at LPS student achievement compared to the state achievement on other measures. We know, for example, that the LPS composite ACT score of 23.3 is more than a full point higher than the state ACT average, which is 22.1. High ACT scores are a reflection of quality instruction and learning at every grade from kindergarten on.
On the Lincoln Public Schools math and reading tests, the following achievement levels for all students were attained for the 08-09 school year:
| Test | Level |
|---|---|
| Elementary reading | 88% |
| Elementary math | 87% |
| Middle school reading | 88% |
| Middle school math | 86% |
| High school reading | 94% |
| High school math | 72% |
Only in high school math did the total student body not meet the AYP percent proficient target. In Lincoln Public Schools, the high school math tests are given as a part of algebra and geometry classes; not all high school students take these classes.
Performance of Subgroups
While LPS students overall did very well in achieving the AYP targets, some subgroups of students were not as successful, particularly the sub-group of students with disabilities and, to a lesser degree, the subgroup of English Language Learners. It is not unreasonable that students with disabilities and students learning the English language may be less successful on a grade-level test than their peers.
If any subgroup does not meet the proficiency benchmark in either reading or math at a grade level, the entire grade level is determined to have Not Met the AYP standard. Thus, high school reading in LPS is labeled as Not Met, even though 94% of all students were proficient in reading and all subgroups but one met the AYP standard.
For school districts in Nebraska to meet AYP, at least one level (elementary, middle school, or high school) must meet the AYP target in reading and at least one level must meet the AYP target in math. In the 2007-08 school year, no levels in LPS met the AYP targets in reading and math, because of the performance of student in one or more subgroups. In the 2008-09 school year, the performance of all students and all sub-groups of students in elementary reading met the AYP target, but no level met the AYP math target, again, because of the performance of students in one or more subgroups.
District “In Need of Improvement”
Because the district has experienced two years in a row without meeting the reading and math AYP targets by at least one level, including all subgroups, the state has determined the district to be a district in need of improvement. This means the district must prepare a district-wide improvement plan and submit it to the Nebraska Department of Education. There are no additional funds for the district to support the planning efforts, nor to support the interventions and instructional improvements that are identified in the plan.
What’s the Plan?
LPS is identified as “in need of improvement” because we had no level that met the AYP standard in math, even though the overall performance in math was high, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. We have already taken steps to focus math instruction at the elementary level, including a review of time allocations, teaching and re-teaching expectations, the appropriate use of math intervention teachers and resource teachers in working with subgroups of students, and the research on best practices in math instruction. We are in the midst of instructional conferences with each elementary principal, reviewing the data for that school, the grouping practices, the use of support teachers, and any other issues related to math achievement in that school. Such conferences will begin soon with middle school principals and high school principals.
Students with disabilities are a subgroup that did not make the AYP target in many schools. The district leadership team in the special education department is working with the curriculum and professional development leaders in supporting buildings to improve instruction of and learning for students with disabilities.
Subgroups of students of color are sometimes groups that do not make the AYP target. We will use Title I ARRA funds to provide professional development in the field of cultural proficiency for teachers and administrators over the next two years.
While we sharpen the focus on math instruction this year, we will maintain the focus on reading instruction, as we need to demonstrate proficiency as specified in the AYP target in both areas in at least one level for two years to be removed from this status.
Most Important Point
Long before NCLB was written, or the AYP construct created, we had committed ourselves to high achievement for all students in all subgroups. That is the continuing commitment. If there were no NCLB, we would be concerned about the 13-14% of students who were not at grade level proficiency, and we would provide interventions, monitor their progress, make adjustments, re-teach and re-test. The AYP construct makes this more visible to the public, but we do this work not because of AYP, but because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the outward action based on our inward and deeply held commitment to high levels of learning for all students.
Marilyn Moore
October 1, 2009
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