AYP 2009

Federal “AYP” scores have been released, and Columbus County Schools showed marked improvement in student achievement according to the AYP model. During the 2009-2010 school year, 63% or 12 out of 19 schools made Adequate Yearly Progress. Percentages of schools making AYP in surrounding systems include Brunswick County Schools at 58%, Bladen County Schools at 39%, Pender County at 63% and Robeson County at 32%. Larger systems percentages include Wake County Schools at 38%, Guilford County Schools at 58.5%, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg at 58%. As a school system, Columbus County Schools met 89.4% (243 of 272) of target goals. Eight schools exited federally mandated improvement (often referred to as Title I School Improvement) by posting two years growth. We were thrilled with the results, but not surprised. Our principals, faculty, staff and students have been working tirelessly to ensure that these gains happened, and I am extremely proud of these accomplishments.



As many of you know, testing and accountability have become very important in schools in the 21st century. Educators and stakeholders may have differing opinions as to the amount of testing and what the results say, but by in large, our schools and our school system are judged at least in part on our students’ performance on tests. This accountability is an alphabet soup of terms and formulas that many do not understand, so some clarification may help understand just what all the scores mean.

There are two major types of accountability: Federal and State. Federal accountability, also known as Adequate Yearly Progress and by its acronym AYP, breaks a school up into different subgroups. The subgroups are School as a Whole, White, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, Multiracial, Economically Disadvantaged Students, Limited English Proficient Students, and Students with Disabilities. Each subgroup has a target goal (a number of students that must “pass the test”) that must be met. If all the subgroups meet their goals and 95% percent of the students are tested, then that school makes AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). A few things to note about AYP: First, only students in grades 3-8 and 10th grade are considered when establishing AYP. AYP does help ensure that all students are being moved forward, and helps us as educators focus on groups that need assistance. One particular frustration about AYP I hear expressed often is that failure to meet even one goal prevents a school from making AYP. While looking at whether or not a school made AYP, one should also look at the number of goals accomplished to get the full picture. Columbus County Schools full AYP results are available at http://www.columbus.k12.nc.us/ayp.

The second accountability is the state “ABC” model. This model, while also very complicated, is based on proficiency (reaching level 3 or 4) on all End of Grade (EOG) tests or End of Course (EOC) tests at the high school level. The main differences between the AYP and ABC models are that student proficiency is considered independent of “subgroups”, and on the high school level AYP considers just Algebra I, English I and Writing, whereas the ABC model looks at those scores plus EOC’s Biology, Algebra II, Civics and Economics, US History, Physical Science and Geometry (Geometry will not be considered this upcoming year). The state has yet to release the ABC scores from last school year; that should happen sometime in August. Looking at our preliminary ABC scores, we feel confident there will be more good news to share.

It is important to understand this “alphabet soup” so that one can have a full understanding of what the results truly indicate. Scores are great, but they are signposts on the journey and not the destination itself. We still have students not achieving at grade level, and as long as we have one student that is not proficient, we cannot rest and we cannot stop improving as a school system. We also cannot rely solely on test scores to evaluate our effectiveness at creating “respectful, responsible adults” in a “global society”.

Test scores should not be the only standard by which we judge our schools. As Einstein once said, “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted” meaning that the experiences our students have on the athletic fields, stages, classrooms and communities also serve to create not only well rounded students, but also well rounded people. The 21st century demands that our students can work “beyond the bubble” of the score sheet, and our schools will strive to create life long learners and creative problem solvers that can meet any test that life in our global society has to give.