(FRANKFORT, Ky.) -- Data indicate that 65.8 percent -- 766 -- of Kentucky's 1,187 public schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the 2005-06 school year under the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the Kentucky Department of Education announced today.
AYP results are based on the Kentucky Core Content Tests' (KCCT) items in reading and mathematics. Schools are required to have specific percentages of students reaching proficiency or above in reading and mathematics each year and to meet other criteria in order to make AYP.
The Kentucky Board of Education adopted the approach of establishing two, three-year plateaus of performance toward the goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014. For the 2004-05 school year, the reading and mathematics goals rose an average of nearly nine points. The reading and mathematics goals will remain at 2004-05 levels through the 2006-07 school year, then rise again in 2007-08.
See the annual measureable objectives in reading and mathematics for various grade levels here, in the statewide Briefing Packet for 2006.
According to the data, 766 Kentucky public schools met 100 percent of their NCLB goals for AYP, while 398 schools did not. Of the 398 schools that did not make AYP, 241 made 80 percent or more of their goals. Statewide, 76 percent -- 19 -- of the 25 target goals were met.
Schools and districts that are funded by the federal Title I program, which provides funds to ensure that disadvantaged children receive opportunities for high-quality educational services, will be subject to federal consequences if they do not make AYP in the same content area in any subgroup for two or more consecutive years. Subgroups in Kentucky are minority students, low-income students, students with disabilities and students with limited-English proficiency. Statewide, 68 Title I schools are in Tier 1 of consequences; 26 Title I schools are in Tier 2; 56 Title I schools are in Tier 3, 1 Title I school is in Tier 4, and 5 Title I schools are in Tier 5.
Consequences for the tiers increase each consecutive year that a school does not make AYP:
Tier 1 (2 years of not making AYP)
- Notify parents
- Implement school choice
- Write or revise school plan
Tier 2 (3 years of not making AYP)
- Continue Tier 1 consequences, including:
- Offer supplemental services
Tier 3 (4 years of not making AYP)
- Continue Tiers 1 and 2 consequences, including:
- Implement corrective action
Tier 4 (5 years of not making AYP)
- Continue Tiers 1, 2 and 3 consequences, including:
- Write a plan for alternative governance
Tier 5 (6 years of not making AYP)
- Continue Tiers 1, 2, 3 and 4 consequences, including:
· - Implement alternate governance consistent with state law
In Kentucky, 846 of the 1,187 schools that participated in the state's 2005-06 assessment and accountability system were funded by Title I. All but two of the 176 school districts that participated in the 2005-06 assessments received some Title I funding. Anchorage Independent and Beechwood Independent did not receive Title I funding in 2005-06.
NOTE: Because some schools are designated as "joint" schools for accountability purposes, the combined numbers of those making AYP and those not making AYP only total 1,164.
School districts also are held to the requirements of AYP under NCLB. Of Kentucky's 176 school districts in 2005-06, 80 – 45.5 percent -- met 100 percent of their target goals. Overall, 144 of 176 districts met 80 percent or more of their goals. For NCLB requirements, school districts are gauged on the total student population. This can mean that, even if every school within a district makes AYP, the district may not because of the total size of subpopulations and their performance.
PERCENTAGES OF NCLB GOALS MADE
PERCENTAGE NUMBER OF NUMBER OF
RANGE SCHOOLS DISTRICTS
100 766 80
90 - 99 129 29
80 - 89 112 35
70 - 79 72 15
60 - 69 53 11
50 - 59 17 4
40 - 49 11 1
30 - 39 4 1
20 - 29 0 0
0 - 19 0 0
Wellstone Amendment
In April 2006, the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) approved adopting a flexibility provision offered by the U.S. Department of Education for NCLB. That flexibility is commonly referred to as the "Wellstone Amendment."
In order to comply with NCLB, states must assess reading and mathematics at grades 3-8. During the 2006 assessments, Kentucky used an augmented norm-referenced test (NRT) as a one-year solution to include the grades not currently assessed in reading and math through the Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT).
Under state regulation, AYP determinations have been made by averaging two to three preceding years' worth of data for schools if their student subpopulations of sufficient size did not meet the AMOs for reading and math in a given year.
With the implementation of the augmented NRT, only one year of data is available for the 2006 AYP results. Therefore, Kentucky invoked the Wellstone Amendment and calculated AYP for schools using the grades tested through the KCCT by averaging 2005 and 2006 data for all subpopulations of sufficient size, schools and districts.
Because of the changes in implementation of NCLB for districts and schools from 2005 to 2006, comparisons from 2005 to 2006 should be made with caution. An impact study will be done to determine the degree of genuine school improvement from 2005 to 2006 versus increases due to changes in NCLB policy.
Signed into law in January 2002, NCLB requires states to provide information on schools' and districts' progress toward proficiency by 2014. Each state uses its own standards and assessments to make the annual determinations. Kentucky used data from the 2005 and 2006 administration of the KCCT to provide 2006 AYP information for its schools and districts.
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is the term used in NCLB to refer to the minimum improvement required of each school and district over the course of one year. It is measured at the school and district levels by:
- measuring growth in the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in reading and mathematics
- assessing improvement on the "other academic indicator"
- testing at least 95 percent of enrolled students and student subpopulations of sufficient size
NCLB mandates that schools and districts be held accountable for the progress of subgroups in reading and mathematics testing in grades 3 through 8 and at least once in each subject in high school and rates of participation in testing. Schools also are held accountable for other academic indicator -- for elementary and middle schools, that indicator is the CATS accountability classification; for high schools, the indicator is the graduation rate.
Each Kentucky school and district has a specific number of NCLB goals to meet in order to make AYP. Each grade level -- elementary, middle, high and combined -- has a unique Annual Measurable Objective (AMO) for reading and mathematics that schools and districts must reach in order to achieve AYP.
A school or district that does not meet the predetermined AMOs in reading or mathematics can be in "safe harbor" and considered to have met the AMOs if these criteria are satisfied:
- reducing the percentage of total students or subpopulation (whichever group did not meet the reading or mathematics AMO) that score below proficient by 10 percent
- students in the same population or subpopulation(s) meet the criteria for demonstrating improvement on the CATS academic index
The number of goals varies depending on the sizes of subpopulations in each school and district. Subpopulation data is reportable only if it meets a minimum group size of 10 students per grade where NCLB-required assessments are administered and 60 students in those grades combined, or the subpopulation makes up at least 15 percent of the total student enrollment in accountable grades. The maximum number of goals is 25. For school districts, the number of goals to meet ranges from 6 to 25, with only two of the state's most diverse school districts – Fayette and Jefferson -- required to meet all 25 goals to make AYP. For individual schools, the number of goals to be met ranges from 4 to 22.
Detailed information on the AYP status of each Kentucky public school and district is available here.
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