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Assessment/Accountability School and District Accountability
Adequate Yearly Progress

2002 & Earlier

Select Review Year: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 & Earlier

Summary: The Massachusetts School and District Accountability System was established in 1999. Between 1999 and 2006 school year, the Department issued accountability determinations at the end of each two-year accountability cycle. These cycles were based on performance and improvement calculations using two years of student performance data combined. The Department adopted the two-year cycle approach to mitigate the potential for error arising out of small sample sizes, thereby increasing the reliability of school and district accountability determinations. Beginning in 2003, the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) required Massachusetts to issue annual measures of student performance and improvement. The Department complied with this requirement by adding a "mid-cycle" AYP determination report in odd numbered years, calculated on a single year's data.

• 2001 and 2002 (Cycle II)
  Cycle II ratings were based on MCAS English language arts/reading (ELA) and mathematics test results for the years 2001 and 2002 combined, and separate ratings were issued for ELA and mathematics. Improvement was rated by comparing a school or district's 2001 and 2002 performance with its performance during 1999 and 2000 (the baseline years for Cycle II). Schools received separate ratings for elementary, middle, and high school performance and improvement, based on grades 4, 7, 8, and 10 ELA and mathematics results. Districts received composite ratings, based on performance across grades, for ELA and mathematics. Grade 7 results for 2002 were combined with Grade 8 results for 2001 to determine middle grades ELA proficiency indices and ratings for Cycle II. (Grade 7 ELA results for 2001, the first year in which MCAS tests were given at that grade level, were not factored into the calculation of Cycle II ratings.)

• 1999 and 2000 (Cycle I)
  In the first cycle, what was then known as the "School Performance Rating Process" included English Language Arts (ELA), Mathematics, and Science & Technology MCAS tests; specific improvement expectations, based on 1998 results, for each content area and for overall performance; and performance and improvement ratings derived by averaging 1999 and 2000 results to rate absolute performance and improvement from the baseline year (1998).

• 1998 (Baseline)
  Schools were initially assigned to a performance category for each content area and for overall performance based on 1998 MCAS results. These baseline performance categories determined improvement expectations for Cycle I (the years 1999 and 2000 combined). At the end of Cycle II, schools received performance ratings based on the average of the 1999 and 2000 results and improvement ratings based on the comparison of those results to the 1998 baseline results.

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