Maine Reports Adequate Yearly Progress Ayp
Maine reports Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
Maine reports Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP):
Fewer than one third of schools making arbitrary targets
On October 2nd, The Maine Department of Education released its annual report on the progress of schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
For 2011-12, only 184 schools out of 608 in Maine, or 30 percent, are labeled as “Making AYP.” That compares to 44 percent of schools last year. The number of schools in “Continuous Improvement Priority Schools” (CIPS) status – meaning they have not met targets for at least two years in a row – increased from 137 last year to 223 this year.
As the federal law now exists, Maine schools are required each year to meet higher testing targets than the previous year in order to make adequate yearly progress. As a result, even as school performance remains the same, or even improves, fewer and fewer schools meet the increased progress requirements.
Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen said Maine will apply for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law that allows the state to develop and propose an alternative accountability system. The new system will reward schools making progress, base measures of achievement on student growth, not straight scores, and will include educator evaluation models that help assess teacher and administrator performance and support improved teaching through professional development and other efforts.
MMSA has and continues to provide support to K-12 schools across Maine in creating and/or sustaining a CIPS plan for improvement in mathematics. For a complete list of the types of professional development and CIPS plan components MMSA offers, follow this link.
The full AYP results for Maine schools for 2011-12 can be viewed at: http://www.maine.gov/education/pressreleases/ayp/index.html
