6 of 15 Apple Valley Schools Make Adequate Progress in Reading, Math

Six of the 15 public school programs in Apple Valley achieved what state and federal standards set as adequate progress on reading and math tests for 2011.

Three of those schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, last year, but improved to do so this year; one school made AYP last year but did not this year.

AYP is a measure of the percentage of students at a school who are proficient in reading and math, based on performance on standardized tests—in Minnesota, those are the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments that students take each spring.

Attendance rates also are factored in to AYP, as are graduation rates for high schools.

The targets for proficiency nationwide are defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The act sets a goal for all public school students in the United States to become proficient in math and reading by 2014.

Apple Valley schools that met AYP requirements this year:

• (did not make in 2010)
• (did not make in 2010)
• (did not make in 2010)

Apple Valley schools that did not meet AYP requirements this year:

• (did make AYP in 2010)

(Data was insufficient to measure AYP at the .)

Subgroups of students that did not meet the reading and math proficiency standards at some of the schools were Hispanic students, black students, students with limited English proficiency, special education students and students who receive free or reduced-price lunches (see attached spreadsheet).

The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district as a whole last made AYP in 2005, according to MDE data, but more than half the district's schools did meet AYP this year.

Most Apple Valley schools .

Superintendent Jane Berenz said in a news release that she is pleased about the improvements over last year's performance; she said, however, that data from a single measure does not alone define a school's success.

If a school or district does not make AYP for two years in a row, it's identified for improvement, and moves through increasing steps toward improvement each year that it doesn't meet the standards.

The U.S. Department of Education told states they could apply for a waiver from some provisions of NCLB beginning in November, according to a Minnesota Department of Education news release. MDE Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said Minnesota would apply.

“Labeling schools as 'failures' or imposing one-size-fits-all mandates is a flawed way to address the unique challenges facing some of our schools,” Cassellius said in the release.

New Math Test

The 2011 AYP results in part reflect a new, more rigorous math test for grades three through eight, as well as a modified test for special education students.

“There was a major shift in the standards,” said Steve Troen, director of teaching and learning for Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan public schools.

Troen said he expects scores to increase next year.

Targets for percentage of students achieving proficiency was altered for math, so the targets grow incrementally each year until 2014, when 100-percent proficiency is expected (see attached tables).

Minnesota's targets for percentage of students proficient in math ranged from about 53 percent to nearly 70 percent, depending on grade level(see attached chart); these were down from a year ago, when between 58- and 89-percent proficiency were expected.

For reading, targets ranged from about 85 percent to about 88 percent, depending on grade level.