Crisis Averted

In May the Center on Education Policy (CEP) released a report looking at how states structured their Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs). The No Child Left Behind Act required only that AMOs reach 100% by 2014 and that each increase must be equivalent, and it allowed states up to three years of no growth. It being 2002 at the time, about half the states chose to backload their AMOs, calling for no gains in the early years of the law, followed by steep increases each year leading into 2014. Depending on your cynicism, this was either to allow districts the opportunity to prepare for the new requirements or a way to force changes to the next generation of the federal education law.

The May CEP report warned of the impending consequences of such backloading:

Although states may have had logical reasons for choosing a backloaded approach, it appears that schools and districts in backloading states are likely to have more difficulty making AYP than in previous years, and the number of schools identified for NCLB improvement in these states might rise.

The numbers are now in ($) for 46 states and the District of Columbia, and it turns out the CEP report was wrong. Nationwide, 7.3 percent more schools failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) this year, for a total of 35.6 percent of all Title I schools. But, that increase was led by the states categorized by CEP as "incremental." While backloaded states averaged only a 3.2 percent increase, incremental states rose 7.7 percent. The percent of schools rated "in need of improvement" rose 2.1 percent for a total of 17.9. This too was led by states that were incremental in their AMOs.

These results suggest that Charlie Barone was right: the safe harbor provision is working. Safe harbor allows districts and schools to make AYP so long as they reduce by 10 percent the percentage of students in any sub-group not meeting proficiency targets. Backloading states are clearly benefiting from this provision (which Charlie dubbed the "poor man's growth model"), and this is entirely a good thing. The law's built-in flexibility is being put to work. The fear that 100 percent of schools will fail is not happening, and the sky remains intact.