Introduction
Pennsylvania's unique approach to reporting
What is AYP?
How does the appeals process work?
How the Media Can Use This Site

Introduction

This website represents a groundbreaking effort by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to provide specific performance information about each school and district in the state, and to describe what AYP results mean for parents and educators. The release of AYP results provides a reason to both celebrate success and stimulate change. The most interesting story may be how schools that are making adequate yearly progress, or showing significant improvement, actually got there.

Pennsylvania’s unique approach to reporting

It is important that AYP results are presented clearly, so that parents, educators, and the general public can:

• Recognize the successes of schools.

• Understand what those schools did to achieve adequate yearly progress.

• Recognize the improvements in performance represented by significant growth.

The AYP results should prompt educators and parents to engage in their school�s and district�s improvement. This online presentation of results is more than just numbers. It should provide a useful diagnosis of problem areas and encourage the development of viable solutions.

What is AYP?

AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, is a key measure of school performance established by the Federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The Pennsylvania Accountability System evaluates all Pennsylvania public schools and districts annually for Adequate Yearly Progress based on the results of the spring PSSA testing cycle and indicators of participation, attendance, and graduation.

For a school to meet AYP targets, students in the school must meet goals in three areas: (1) Attendance (for schools that do not have a graduating class) or Graduation (for schools that have a high school graduating class), (2) Academic Performance, and (3) Test Participation. Schools are evaluated for test performance and test participation for all students. Each subgroup represented by 40 or more students in the school must meet the AYP targets. The measurement of success by subgroup, as required by AYP, provides insight toward closing the achievement gap, and measurement against the 41 NCLB targets point out specific areas where schools may need to improve (click here to view chart of all 41 possible targets).

District targets are assessed in three grade spans: Grades 3–5, 6–8, and 9–12. To meet AYP goals in Academic Performance or Test Participation, the district needs to achieve all targets for both subjects in one grade span only.

How does the appeals process work?

Preliminary reports on school and district 2007 AYP status were available as of July 17, 2007. If a school or district had legitimate questions regarding the accuracy of AYP determinations, they had grounds to file an appeal with the Bureau of Assessment and Accountability at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. As they did last year, schools and districts had the opportunity to correct coding errors in the data themselves during the online data correcting phase.

Final determinations on appeals were made prior to the public release of this report. When AYP targets for schools or districts have been met by appeal, this is noted in the report.

How the Media Can Use This Site

On this website, you can find detailed information about schools’ and districts’ 2006-07 AYP status and performance. Performance data are available for the school or district overall and for each subgroup.

Once you have chosen a school or district, you will see an initial page with an overall description of AYP status.

To view more detailed results, the bottom section of the report has several tabs.

• The two tabs under “More About This School’s Results” provide a clear written summary of AYP results for parents, educators, and administrators. The purpose of these areas is to provide the community with a realistic view of their schools, and give guidance for improving or maintaining a school’s performance.

• In the AYP section on the right, the “Overview” tab shows the simple breakdown of results for Attendance, Academic Performance, and Test Participation.

• The adjacent “Performance Chart” tab graphically depicts the details of the data�and provides options to view additional information. Users have the option to view last year’s results, this year’s "Safe Harbor" target for improvement, and next year’s state target, in addition to the basic information initially presented.

• The last AYP tab is for the “Data Table.” This tab shows the specific values for attendance or graduation rates, percentage of proficient students in Mathematics and Reading, and test participation rates. Also shown is the change in the percentage of proficient students from last year to this year.

To see the state results at a glance, and for downloadable data files, please refer to the State Report page.