Education

Different State Policies Create Inconsistent AYP Results

February 19, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Here’s a thought experiment:

As a parent, I know that my son’s elementary school in a “leafy green” suburb of Washington made AYP last year. But what if that school had needed to make AYP as it’s defined in South Carolina, where the proficiency levels are notoriously higher? Or California, which has set low annual targets until the 2014 goal of universal proficiency begins to loom? Or Maryland, which has the smallest “n” size of any state—a fact that makes it more difficult to make AYP across all of the subgroups of students?

My son’s school might not have made AYP status under the rules of those states.

The folks at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute decided to run that experiment for 36 schools and produced a report on the results. The conclusion: A school’s geography matters in determining whether it makes AYP. Here’s a quote from the conclusion of the executive summary:

One of the adages of the NCLB era is that a child’s ZIP code shouldn’t determine her life chances. Indeed. But neither should a school’s ZIP code determine whether or not it makes AYP. Yet regrettably it often does. And so the success or failure of a given school under NCLB is driven as much by the way the law is implemented by its home state as it is by the performance of its students and the amount of progress they’ve made over the course of a year.

You can read the rest by clicking on the links in the page dedicated to the report.

A version of this news article first appeared in the NCLB: Act II blog.

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: March 13, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 21, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 7, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: January 31, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read