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ANNUAL REVIEW OF SCHOOL PERFORMANCE 2003 - 2004

Year of Testing: 2003-04


Preliminary Annual Review of School Performance

State of federal laws require the annual review of school performance to determine academic student achievement and progress. Annual review of school performance required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is based on the school's Test Participation, the Other Indicator required (Graduation or Attendance rate for the All Student group), and the proficiency rate on the academic indicators, Reading and Mathematics.

The 4th, 8th, and 10th grade proficiency rates are based on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE)1 and Wisconsin Alternate Assessments (both for LEP and Students with Disabilities) test scores of students enrolled in the school for a full academic year (FAY)2. The overall goal of NCLB is for all Wisconsin students to attain the "Proficient" or "Advanced" levels in Reading and Mathematics by the year 2014.

To fulfill the annual review requirements for the current year, schools must meet the criteria for each of the four required Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) objectives:

  1. Test Participation Objective:
    At least 95% of the total number of students Enrolled in the tested grades at the time of testing must participate in the Reading and Mathematics tests (average of reading and math participation combined). The All Student group and each subgroup of sufficient cell size3 must meet the 95% Test Participation objective.
  2. Other Indicator Objective:
    • Schools with 12th grade use their High School Graduation rate. Schools must meet 90% of the statewide rate of 90.83%, which is 81.75%, or show growth over the prior year.
    • Schools without 12th grade must meet 90% of the statewide Attendance rate of 94.3%, which is 84.9%, or show growth over the prior year.
  3. Schools of sufficient cell size3 must meet the required criteria for the Other Indicator, or show growth from the prior year on that indicator.

  4. Reading Annual Measurable Objective:
    The percentage of full academic year (FAY) students who scored at or above the "Proficient" level4 in the current year must be equal to or greater than the Annual Measurable Objective for Reading (61%). The All Student group and each subgroup of sufficient cell size must meet the Annual Measurable Objective for Reading.

  5. Mathematics Annual Measurable Objective:
    The percentage of full academic year (FAY) students who scored at or above the "Proficient" level4 in the current year must be equal to or greater than the Annual Measurable Objective for Mathematics (37%). The All Student group and each subgroup of sufficient cell size must meet the Annual Measurable Objective for Mathematics.
Under NCLB, all schools must be held accountable. Therefore, if the cell size of 40 is not met for the All Student group, then up to three years' Reading and Mathematics proficiency data (beginning with 2001-02) will be combined until it reaches 40. Multiple years' data are only used for the All Students' Reading and Mathematics Annual Measurable Objectives. For the All Student group, the higher of the two proficiency rates is used: current year rate (2002-03) or most recent two-year average proficiency rate (2001-03). In all other cases, if the cell size is not met, the data are not used in school-level AYP calculations.

Safe Harbor Provision
If the Annual Measurable Objectives for Reading or Mathematics are not met, then Safe Harbor allows the Reading or Mathematics objectives to be met for the All Student group or a subgroup if the percentage of students not yet proficient5 is decreased by 10% from the prior year. In addition, the Other Indicator for the All Students or that subgroup must also be met. The All Student Other Indicator is high school graduation, school attendance (see II.), or Science (starting point or growth).

Wisconsin is in the process of collecting completely disaggregated data for Graduation and Attendance. Until these indicators are collected statewide for all subgroups, Science proficiency rates will be used as the subgroup's Other Indicator. The Safe Harbor criteria for each subgroup will be the state's starting point for that subgroup or growth from the prior year's proficiency rate.

Schools Designated as "Identified for Improvement"
Beginning with 2002-03 test results, schools are designated as "identified for improvement" when the school fails to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two consecutive years in the same AYP objective. Once designated as "identified for improvement," a school must meet the annual review criteria for two consecutive years in the same AYP objective to be removed from this designation. Instructions regarding the 30-day appeal period will accompany any preliminary notification of being "in improvement" status.
 

1The Wisconsin Student Assessment System (WSAS) in grades 4, 8, and 10 currently consists of state-adopted standardized tests called the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE) and the standards-based Wisconsin Alternate Assessments (WAA): The WAA-LEP for students with limited English proficiency and the WAA-SwD for students with disabilities.

2The Full Academic Year (FAY) is defined as the students who at the time of testing have been continuously enrolled since the third Friday in September enrollment count during the school year prior to testing.

3The cell size in Wisconsin is 40 students, except for students with disabilities where the cell size is 50. A minimum cell size is required to increase the reliability of the AYP decision.

4"Proficient" and "Advanced" percentages are combined in order to calculate percent totals. The percent of students scoring at or above "Proficient" is equal to the percent "Proficient" plus the percent
"Advanced." For AYP purposes only, the students within one standard error of measurement (SEM or within about 10 scale score points) have been included with the proficiency calculations for AYP.

5Students not yet proficient include the reported groups, "Not Assessed on WSAS," "Pre-Requisite Skill/English," "Minimal," and "Basic." In order to increase the reliability of the AYP decision, the students scoring within one standard error of measurement (SEM) of proficient have been included here as proficient.

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