  Doesn't NCLB unfairly punish diverse schools?Any school that doesn't help all groups of students meet state standards will be identified as needing improvement under NCLB's accountability system, known as AYP.* That identification may come as a shock to some diverse schools that in the past relied on one group of students - often white and non-poor - to mask the poor performance of other groups - often low-income students, students of color, English-language learners and students with disabilities. But that is part of the purpose of AYP. Most of the accountability systems that states had, prior to NCLB, relied on the average performance of all students in a school. If the performance of one group of students was high enough, the low performance of other groups of students would not be noticed in the average. Many state accountability systems never alerted members of the public to the existence of achievement gaps. Take, for example, George Washington Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia. George Washington has a diverse student population, with African Americans constituting 47 percent of the student body and Latinos and White students each adding 25 percent. In addition, 50 percent of students receive free or reduced lunch. In 2004, 96 percent of the school's White students passed Virginia's state English exam, but only 51 percent of African-American students and only 45 percent of Latino test-takers. These gaps carried over to mathematics. Ninety-nine percent of White students passed the Virginia state mathematics exam, compared to 70 percent of Latino and African-American students. Under Virginia's accountability system, George Washington is fully accredited for 2004-2005 because the average performance of all students met state criteria. However, it failed to make AYP because of the wide achievement gaps that were revealed once the data was broken down, or disaggregated, by group. AYP revealed that African-American and Latino students were not being well served by George Washington Middle School. It is important to note that even some pre-NCLB accountability systems that relied on disaggregated data and a so-called "growth model" allowed gaps to grow in diverse schools while the schools received satisfactory ratings from the accountability systems. Farallone View Elementary in Montara, California, for example, was considered a successful school under the California accountability system (API) despite a tiny growth in performance by African-American and Latino students that left widening gaps. For example, in 2003, 23 percent of its African-American students were proficient in mathematics compared to 83 percent of Asian students, and 18 percent of its Latino students were proficient in language arts, compared to 67 percent of Asian students. Those gaps meant Farallone did not make AYP, though it did meet California's API targets. The truth is that under pre-NCLB accountability systems, low-income students, minority students, English-language learners, and students with disabilities who attended diverse schools were often unfairly punished by not receiving the academic attention that they needed and deserved. NCLB requires schools to account for all groups of children, which should mean that children who need help will get it. Diverse schools that pay attention to the needs of all their students should have no reason to fear AYP. Frankford Elementary School, for example, is a very diverse school in rural Delaware that has easily made AYP. Roughly 34 percent of the students are Latino, 29 percent African American and the rest white. Seventy-six percent of the students are low-income and 22 percent are identified as needing special education services. Because of excellent instruction, a full 98 percent of the students meet state reading standards, with very small gaps among groups of students. (To read more about Frankford, see the "It's Being Done" section of this briefing book.) * AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, is fully explained elsewhere in the section called Resources, "ABCs of AYP."
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