PPT Slide
Two Camps on Accountability
This notion of adequate yearly progress represents a compromise between two schools of thought present during the 1994 ESEA reauthorization and in key battles fought over school local and state accountability Systems before and since. There were those who believed schools should be held accountable for making progress based on where they started - some schools start so far behind that they should not be compared to higher-performing schools. Others believed that all schools, regardless of their student proficiency rates, should be given a date certain (for example, within two years) by which a high percentage of students were proficient. Under the latter scenario, some schools - those schools with high proficiency rates to begin with - do not need to show progress. Others -those with very low proficiency rates - must make herculean gains in two short years.
This discussion continues in school districts and states across the nation: how to avoid punishing schools for serving populations of students who are hardest to teach while at the same time avoiding ratification of the notion that low-income students can't be expected to learn to the same high standards as other students.