B. Key Findings - Adequate Yearly Progress

Three-fourths (75 percent) of all schools and districts met all applicable AYP targets in 2004-05 testing. The number of all schools missing AYP (22,093) based on 2004-05 testing is nearly double the number of schools identified for improvement for 2005-06 (11,648). If many non-identified schools that did not make AYP in 2004-05 testing missed AYP again the following year, the number of identified schools could rise substantially in 2006-07.

• Schools most commonly missed AYP for the achievement of all students and/or multiple subgroups; only in a minority of cases did schools miss only one AYP target. Based on data from 39 states, among schools that missed AYP in 2004-05, 43 percent did not meet achievement targets for the "all students" group in reading, mathematics, or both and another 19 percent missed AYP for the achievement of two or more subgroups (see Exhibit 7). Only 21 percent missed AYP solely due to the achievement of a single subgroup. Four percent missed solely due to the "other academic indicator," and 3 percent missed solely due to insufficient test participation rates. The remaining 10 percent of schools that missed AYP missed for other combinations of AYP targets.
• Schools in states that had set more challenging proficiency standards than other states, as measured relative to NAEP, were less likely to make AYP and have further to go to reach the NCLB goal of 100 percent proficient. In states that had higher proficiency standards in 4th and 8th grade reading (based on using NAEP to benchmark the states against a common metric), 70 percent of schools made AYP in 2003-04, compared with 84 percent of schools in states that had lower proficiency standards.
• NCLB required states to set starting points for the percentages of students achieving at the proficient in order to measure progress towards the goal of 100 percent proficiency. States that had higher standards tended to have lower starting points and thus had further to go to reach 100 percent proficiency, compared with states that had set lower standards. For example, for 8th grade mathematics, states with higher proficiency standards had an average starting point of 16 percent, and therefore need to raise their percentage of students performing at the proficient level by 84 percentage points, while states with lower proficiency standards had an average starting point of 51 percent and need to raise their percent proficient by 49 percentage points (see Exhibit 8).