How is AYP Determined in MN?

Here is a quick summary of how AYP is determined (written by my colleague Wendy for a school here in Minnesota):

1. A school must meet target proficiency rates to make AYP:

• Students generate a proficiency rate. There are four achievement levels- D (Did not meet), P (Partially met), M (Met), E (Exceeded). For each "M" or "E", a student generates one point. For each "P", a student generates 1/2 point. Students with a "D" do not generate any points. Each year the points are added and divided by the total number of students to get proficiency rates. So for example, if 10 students scored "M" and 10 students scored "E" and 10 students scored "P", and 10 students scored "D", they would generate a total of 25 points. These 25 points would be divided by 40 (total number of students) to get the rate 62.5.
• There are proficiency rate targets for each cell (like English Learner, Special Ed, Free/reduced Lunch). These are adjusted based on the number of students in each cell- if there are fewer students, MDE provides a wider margin.
• There are four chances to meet the proficiency rate targets. The first way is to meet the annual state proficiency rate target for each group (adjusted based on group size).
• The second way is to meet the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the test data from the year before. Each year, each subgroup generates a proficiency rate. Therefore, each subgroup also generates a nonproficiency rate. Take ten percent of the nonproficiency rate and add it to the proficiency rate, to get the Safe Harbor target. For example, if you had a proficiency rate of 40 the year before, then the nonproficiency rate would be 60. Ten percent of 60 is 6. Add 6 to 40 and you get the new Safe Harbor proficiency rate target.
• The third way is to meet the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the data from the last two years. So if a school doesn't make the Safe Harbor proficiency rate targets for all the cells using the test data from the year before, MDE goes back two years to see if that will help.
• The fourth way is to meet the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the data from the last three years. So if a school doesn't make the Safe Harbor proficiency rate target using the test data from the last two years, MDE goes back three years.

2. A school must meet test participation rate targets to make AYP (at least 95% if students must take the test).

3. A school must meet attendance rate targets (90% based on the rates from the year before, this year based on 2009-10).

So you can see it is important to ensure that students who have passed in the past continue to pass, those who partially passed move onto passing, and those who did not pass, move on to partially pass. If a school's Safe Harbor target were 40 and the school had 100 students enrolled before Oct 1 who took the test), one way to make Safe Harbor would be if 20 students passed and forty scored partially proficient. In this case, the students who passed would generate 20 points, and those who partially passed would generate 20 points. This would be 40 points divided by 100.