August 20, 2009

As many saw in the news last week, the initial results for Kansas and Missouri statewide assessments for the 2008-09 school year, including Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), have been reported. AYP is an annual measure of academic school progress as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In order for a school to be designated as having met AYP standards, schools must have:

• 95% participation in test taking for all eligible students and subgroups (by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language proficiency, etc.).

• A targeted percentage of all students and subgroups score Proficient or Advanced.

• A graduation rate of 85% or higher (as measured by the state’s cohort measure) for high schools.

As you know, for schools which serve high numbers of low-income students, English-language learners, and students who are first-generation high school graduates and/or college-goers, AYP is a challenging measure of progress. This report is designed to inform you about both the AYP progress and the work which remains ahead as these districts engage with PREP-KC to change student outcomes.

In the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, PREP-KC invests in improvement strategies in the four comprehensive (First Things First) high schools: J. C. Harmon, F. L. Schlagle, Washington and Wyandotte. Highlights of the results include:

• Schlagle and Wyandotte High Schools met all AYP targets.

• Washington met AYP targets in Reading and graduation rate.

• The percentage of students in the four high schools who scored Proficient or Advanced in Math increased from 48.3% in 2007-08 to 52.8% in 2008-09, with Schlagle increasing 17.1 percentage points in that year.

• The percentage of students who scored Proficient or Advanced in Reading increased from 54.4% to 59.7%, with Wyandotte increasing 8.8 percentage points in one year.

Note: The Missouri state assessments changed in the 2008-09 school year. All Missouri students now take end-of-course assessments in Algebra I, English II, and Biology instead of taking a general Math assessment at the end of tenth grade and a general Communication Arts assessment at the end of eleventh grade. Because of the change in these assessments it would be statically inappropriate to compare 2008-09 scores to scores from previous years. However, even with these changes in state testing, Missouri tests continue to be among the most rigorous in the country. And, as noted below, it does appear that Achievement First high schools have shown incremental improvement.

In the Kansas City, Missouri School District, PREP-KC supports the four comprehensive (Achievement First) high schools: Central, Northeast, Paseo and East. Promising news from this week’s report includes:

• Paseo Academy of Fine & Performing Arts met all AYP targets, including a preliminary graduation rate of 93%.

• 73% of the students tested at Paseo scored Proficient or Advanced on the English II assessment, essentially matching the average performance (72.5%) of all Missouri students.

• Four out of five subgroups from Northeast met AYP targets in Communication Arts.

• 13.7% of all Achievement First students who were tested scored Proficient or Advanced on the new Algebra I assessment (up from 6% two years ago when the students took the Missouri Assessment Program test). At Paseo, 20% of students tested scored Proficient or Advanced in Algebra I.

• 47.6% of all Achievement First students who were tested scored Proficient or Advanced on the English II assessment, including 47.8% at Northeast and 43.4% at East.

• Southwest Early College Campus, after only one year of operation, saw 22.7% of the 9th graders who were tested score Proficient or Advanced on the Algebra I state assessment.

PREP-KC is proud to be a partner with both KCKPS and KCMSD and to support strategies, which continue to improve critical student outcomes. While pleased with the progress, we know there is still significant work to be done in order to prepare all of Kansas City’s urban students for post-secondary education and/or high-quality employment.

In order to track and share these important outcomes, PREP-KC is developing a new tool, a Data Dashboard, to both measure progress and analyze the results of investments from PREP-KC's funders. We will contact you this fall with an invitation to view the Dashboard and to discuss next-steps in improving college and career preparation for our region’s urban students.