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School Accountability
How does the No Child Left Behind Law make schools and school districts more accountable for improving the academic achievement of students?
NCLB accomplishes this by:
- Requiring states to set academic standards
for specific grade levels. These
standards indicate what students should know at
each grade level. The state must then
determine whether or not students are achieving
these standards through testing.
- States must test all students in grades 3
through 8 every year. They must also test
students at least once between 9th and 12th
grade. This testing is used to determine
the percentage of students in different grades
who are considered "proficient" in specific
subjects such as reading and math.
- NCLB requires that 100 percent of students
be proficient (on grade level) in reading and
math by 2014.
- Each year, a higher percentage of students
are required to be proficient (at grade level)
in order to reach the goal of 100 percent by
2014. Schools whose students achieve that
year's target percentage are considered to be
making Adequate Yearly Progress
(AYP).
- If a Title 1 school (schools that serve many low-income families and receive extra federal funding) fails to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two consecutive years, the school is identified as being in "Year 1 of School Improvement." If they do not make AYP the following year, they are in "Year 2 of School Improvement." If they continue to not make AYP, they move into subsequent years of School Improvment Status. There are additional consequences for each year a school remains in School Improvement Status (see the School Improvement Status table). Schools move out of School Improvement Status when they make AYP for two consecutive years.
What is
AYP?
Adequate
Yearly Progress (AYP) is the term that NCLB
used to explain a school's progress toward
reaching the national goal of 100% student
proficiency in Reading and Mathematics in all
schools by the year 2014.
School
Report Cards
As
part of the accountability process, states and
school districts are required to publish yearly
report cards on school performance. These
"school report cards" should indicate whether
the school is in School Improvment
Status. The report cards also include
information on the percentage of students found
to be proficient in math, reading and other
subject areas tested (reports are also broken
down by subgroups such as grade level, gender,
minority groups, special education and
low-income students).
- Information on whether your child's school is in School Improvement Status (and if so, what year) can be obtained on http://www.nclb.osse.dc.gov/.