Just found out that DS's elementary and middle schools did not make AYP...concerning?

[Anonymous]

Can someone (perhaps a teacher?) break down AYP and let me know if I should be concerned? We moved to this area (Vienna) because the school pyramid is supposed to be very good, and now the elementary school DS2 goes to and the middle school DS1 goes to did not make AYP. Are any other parents concerned? Is it not a big deal? Both my kids seems happy and are doing fine in school, so I am not too worried, but I would still like to understand AYP a little more.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

What's AYP?

[Anonymous]

LOTS of schools did not make AYP due to the failure of their subgroups. Eventually all the schools won't make AYP because what are the chances that 100% of ALL students will pass their SOLs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOTS of schools did not make AYP due to the failure of their subgroups. Eventually all the schools won't make AYP because what are the chances that 100% of ALL students will pass their SOLs.

Exactly. The mandatory pass rates increase every year and one subgroup, like "learning disabled," failing to meet AYP can cause the whole school to miss its AYP target. The majority of Virginia schools failed to make AYP this year. And the chances that 100% of all students will pass in about 3 years (the federally mandated target) is not likely at all, unless states dumb down their tests. Virginia's tests are actually more challenging than those of other states like Tenessee, California, etc.

[Anonymous]

Don't worry about it. Fairfax County as a whole did not make AYP either. As a PP said, most likely it is a subgroup that did not make it - like economically disadvantaged or students with disabilities. As long as YOUR children are learning and are enjoying school, don't worry about it.

[Anonymous]

PP here. I just looked up a couple of Vienna schools wihch did not make AYP. I don't know which school your child attends, but Flint Hill passed in every section except for the mathematics section for students with disabilities. Big deal! For Marshall Road, they passed in every section but for math and reading for students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students. For Cunningham Park, it was same as above plus the Hispanic students in those two categories. Unless your children fall in these categories, it shouldn't matter how other categories do.

[Anonymous]

See the posts on the thread about when SOL scores come out.

[Anonymous]

There are 29 different subgroups for AYP purposes; if one sub-group doesn't have a sufficient pass rate, the entire school is deemed not to have made AYP. AYP stands for "Adequate Yearly Progress" and is a term set forth in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

At Freedom Hill ES, for example, the only subgroup that didn't have an adequate pass rate last year was Hispanics on the English exam. At Kilmer MS, the only subgroup that didn't meet the minimum pass rate was students with disabilities on the Math exam. As noted, there are many other good schools in the county, such as Carson MS and Chantilly and Lake Braddock HS, that also didn't make AYP under the increasingly demanding targets under NCLB.

If you want to see the details for the individual schools, you can check the school report cards on the Virginia Department of Education web site. These summaries tell you not only whether a school made AYP, but how students in the various subgroups performed on the state-wide tests compared to students in the school district (Fairfax County, Arlington County, etc.) and state generally:

https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/reportcard/

It's a bigger deal when a Title I school with high percentages of low-income students doesn't make AYP for several years running. When that happens, the school district typically has to allow students to transfer to other schools that made AYP and aren't subject to sanctions. However, there aren't any Title I schools in Vienna, so it's not like students at Cunningham Park or Freedom Hill can transfer to Vienna or Wolftrap because their schools didn't make AYP.

[Anonymous]

...and the difference between adequate pass rate or not can be as few as one to a handful of students in a particular sub category.

[Anonymous]

That is why so many schools use the alternative assessment VGLA for their disabled students. This year, VA DOE cracked down on the usage so fewer students could use it.

Also they make ESOL students take the SOsL. I had students who could barely speak English but they enrolled within the time frame and was forced to take the SOLs (they didn't pass). They don't speak English well so giving them the test read to them don't help. Ridiculous!

[Anonymous]

Almost every school in the country will fail to make AYP in the next few years. The statutory target set by the NCLB is 100% proficiency of all students, in all twenty-nine subgroups by 2014. That is a completely unrealistic target that virtually no school will meet. Don't get hung up on AYP status - it really doesn't tell you anything other than than the NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act) is a mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Almost every school in the country will fail to make AYP in the next few years. The statutory target set by the NCLB is 100% proficiency of all students, in all twenty-nine subgroups by 2014. That is a completely unrealistic target that virtually no school will meet. Don't get hung up on AYP status - it really doesn't tell you anything other than than the NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act) is a mess.

Without getting hung up on AYP status, you can still look at the pass rates for individual schools and draw your own conclusions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Almost every school in the country will fail to make AYP in the next few years. The statutory target set by the NCLB is 100% proficiency of all students, in all twenty-nine subgroups by 2014. That is a completely unrealistic target that virtually no school will meet. Don't get hung up on AYP status - it really doesn't tell you anything other than than the NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act) is a mess.

Without getting hung up on AYP status, you can still look at the pass rates for individual schools and draw your own conclusions.

I totally agree with the last comment. It is important to look at the pass rates in comparison to Va. schools as a whole and compared to your county/city.

Also, even if you are in a school that is lower than the average for the county or state, look deeper into the make up of the school and the pass rates for different sub-groups. If your child's school has a large proportion of FARMs kids and their scores are very low while other groups are high, then you might conclude that the teaching isn't the problem. Same with comparing pass rates for other subgroups. If one group has high pass rates (like 95% or better), while other groups in the same school are much lower, I'd lay responsibility on the individuals in those groups rather than assume that there is a problem with the teaching.

[Anonymous]

If it makes you feel better, quite a few Arlington schools didn't make AYP either - the ones that didn't seemed to be the ones with significant non-caucasian, ESL and FARMS eligible populations, which don't always translate into higher test scores. Literally every single ES that made AYP was a majority white North Arlington school, and the only HS that made AYP was Yorktown. None of the 3 Arlington middle schools made AYP.

I'd look at the scores and see if they were at least close to passing. I wouldn't be too concerned if the school was at 80% instead of 85%, for example.