Adequate Yearly Progress

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) was a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allowed the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country was performing academically according to results on standardized tests. As defined by National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), AYP was "the amount of annual achievement growth to be expected by students in a particular school, district, or state in the U.S. federal accountability system, No Child Left Behind (NCLB)." AYP has been identified as one of the sources of controversy surrounding George W. Bush administration's Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Private schools were not required to make AYP. The inadequate No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Sec. 1111 (b)(F), required that "each state shall establish a timeline for adequate yearly progress. The timeline shall ensure that not later than 12 years after the 2001-2002 school year, all students in each group described in subparagraph (C)(v) will meet or exceed the State's standards." These timelines were developed by state education agencies working under guidance from the federal government. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was the law used as the primary statute governing the federal government's role in education. The federal government's role in this area was earlier defined under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The ESEA stated that its purpose was to strengthen and improve educational quality and educational opportunities in the nation's elementary and secondary schools. These goals were to be achieved through financial assistance to local educational agencies for the education of children of low-income families or with disabilities. In 2001, ESEA was modified and renamed the No Child Left Behind Act. To its proponents, the goal of NCLB and the AYP measurement was the strengthening and improvement of the education of elementary and secondary school students.