Our Two Moments of AYP

First, we need to celebrate. For the 2008-09 school year, CVCS has made “adequate yearly progress, or AYP, a federally determined, state-defined benchmark for school performance. AYP is a composite measure, drawing on attendance, percentage of students tested, academic performance in mathematics and language arts, and for high school, graduation rates. Schools and school districts either make AYP or they do not. We made it. More importantly, student performance is not taken just as a whole but also potentially in ten sub-groups. If a school has enough students in sub-groups of specified races, limited English proficiency, low income, and special education, each of those groups must make adequate yearly progress for the school to be said to make adequate yearly progress. I am grateful for this part of the legislation, for schools can no longer rely on those groups who historically have done well in school to carry the school. Every group of students must demonstrate proficiency in mathematics and language arts, and while it is certainly true that we need to focus on individual students, as a society we recognize that individual student achievement gaps are not evenly distributed across all groups but tend to accumulate in certain minority groups. As educators, we now have no choice but to look at student achievement from the standpoint of the academically least advantaged. Apart from the social justice this part of No Child Left Behind promotes, there is the great educational challenge of solving a problem that for a long time was ignored and now appears to be very, very challenging. Yet in spite of these hurdles, CVCS made AYP. Again.

While we are in the moment of celebration, you should also know that the academic bar schools have to clear to make AYP becomes increasingly higher over time. That is, making AYP this year represents even more of an accomplishment than making it last year or two years ago. The fact that CVCS made AYP for the third year in a row is a tribute to the students, families, and teachers of CVCS, and we should all take this moment to indulge ourselves in this accomplishment.

But now it’s time to get back to work. On a more reflective occasion we can discuss the merits of No Child Left Behind, the name given to the legislation enacted in 2001, for it has its flaws as many people have pointed out. Its principal virtue, as I claim above, is that it forces us to lift every student up to ever higher levels of academic performance regardless of their sub-group membership. This year, 77.5 percent of all students at CVCS must demonstrate their proficiency against state learning standards, which is 7.5 percentage points higher than last year and 15 percentage points higher than two years ago. Taking our current overall percentage passing of 74.6 percent, you can see why I say let’s take one moment to celebrate and then get back to work. Looking ahead, by the 2013-14 school year, every student from grade three on is required to demonstrate a proficient knowledge of mathematics and language arts.

As parents in grades two through eight know, we are working hard this year to improve our success, to extend it to more and more students. Our K-8 Learning Center program now focuses on reading and writing, and every week students take grade level math exercises to see if there are deficiencies we need to target in our instruction. Students’ work samples have a published writing rubric to guide students’ work and our feedback. It is enormously hard work as everyone knows by now, but constant improvement requires hard work. And we have no choice but to constantly improve. The bar has been raised.