The adequate yearly progress component of the No Child Left Behind Act presents a challenge to state boards of education across the United States. As the state board meetings in Raleigh in October and November reveal, establishing the adequate yearly progress standard is an important process for North Carolina, but one that will not be decided until next year.

North Carolina’s Compliance Commission made several recommendations to the board on accountability issues contained in the No Child Left Behind Act. The committee recommended a minimum of 30 student scores be required to establish a valid subgroup for reporting purposes; defined the full academic year as 140 days, replacing the 91-day rule used for ABC’s growth calculations; and added a number of other provisions regarding science testing, the high school comprehensive test, and field testing in unusual school situations.

North Carolina is by no means alone in its need to evaluate standards. As of September, according to Lynn Olson of Education Week and Education Counts, more than half of states were still in the process of defining adequate yearly progress for themselves. For the roughly half of states that have come to a working definition of adequate yearly progress, half of these had no working definition of subgroups, or of how student progress should ideally be spread out over the 12-year elementary-secondary school period.

A good deal of the work state education boards must do involves meshing federal accountability systems with state systems. As states see how their testing and accountability compares to federal guidelines, they can revise their definitions of accountability and progress.

Setting the bar and beyond

A 1994 version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act required Title I schools, those serving the neediest students, to develop a mechanism to measure progress for that group. However, no system was in place to measure performance in all public schools.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires that all children in grades three through eight be tested in reading and math, that they take a reading and a math test during the high school years, and that they take a science test during each of the phases of their elementary, middle, and high school education.

Adequate yearly progress will be measured on a state-by-state basis. States set the bar for what they determine to be “proficient” in relation to their academic standards. According to Lisa Graham Keegan and Billie Orr of the Education Leaders Council, “The play is no longer the thing; success in complying with the law will no longer be based upon whether a state has created academic standards and testing, but rather on how well all of its students are doing in making real progress toward meeting those standards.”

Once a definition of proficiency has been established, the rate of incremental improvement, adequate yearly progress, and the rate at which they will get 100 percent of students to proficiency in 12 years must be set. After testing students each year, states must disaggregate data to determine how specific subgroups are faring at all levels (school, district, and state), and release the results to the public. According to Keegan and Orr, “Process is not enough; it’s results that count.”

States cannot effectively cheat by setting a low achievement bar. The law still requires that they show consistent improvement. “The gain requirement will save us from ‘nefarious behavior’ because schools can’t keep the bar on the floor,” Keegan said. A state’s definition of adequate yearly progress must be the same for all schools in the state, and follow a 12-year timeline for getting all students to proficiency. State criteria must also be “statistically valid and reliable,” Keegan and Orr said, and must set the initial bar at a level based on either its lowest achieving demographic group, or the scores of its lowest achieving schools, whichever is highest. School year 2001-02 scores determine what percentage of students meet or exceed proficiency standards.

Comprehensive oversight

The standards described under the act are designated basic, proficient, and advanced. The law requires that states raise the achievement bar in equal increments over time, beginning not more than two years into the process, and at least every three years thereafter. States must be able to demonstrate continuous progress with disadvantaged students as well, though progress is reported separately.

Although the onus of reporting rests with individual states, external monitoring is built into the law. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in reading and math are required every other year. The NAEP tests should act as both “light and leverage” in the process of refining and adjusting standards for each state, Keegan and Orr said.

Accountability Works, a policy advisory group working in with the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the Education Leaders Council, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the National Council on Teacher Quality, examined how school systems conduct testing. A preliminary report was offered at the Education Leaders Council Conference in Denver in September. Theodor Rebarber, president of Accountability Works, emphasized looking at specific items, not just features, of state tests. Some key elements for evaluating test standards, Rebarber said, are the content of the assessment test, the alignment of tests with state curriculum standards, the rigor of the test items, and technical features of the test, including the format for asking and answering questions.

Re-evaluating tests and procedures allows states to see whether and how well their practices dovetail with the No Child Left Behind Act. To develop good accountability, Rebarber says, states need to define minimum annual increases for all students, release test items annually, and be sure that incentives and consequences accrue to students as well as to teachers.

Rebarber’s group has developed a benchmark for judging state accountability. The group concluded there is “much room for improvement” across the board. Although North Carolina, Texas, and Florida are some of the higher-ranked states in Accountability Works’ study, there are also common weaknesses and challenges they face. Rebarber noted that mathematics is generally missing rigorous content, and that the “elementary level math is unfocused and does not prepare kids well for middle school math.”

Although most states are not sure what the ideal system looks like, the “specific ambiguity” aspect of the law should be an asset. Keegan, the Education Leaders Council, and others, are confident that the flexibility of the federal guidelines will allow states to achieve their 100 percent proficiency goal by building the system that works best for them.

Palasek is assistant editor for Carolina Journal.