Dysart Unified School District No.89 - Achievement & Accountability

ARIZONA LEARNS ACHIEVEMENT PROFILE

In November of 2001, Arizona voters approved Proposition 301 which, among other things, provided funds to the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) to develop “a system to measure school performance based on student achievement, including student performance on the AIMS test.” The legislative requirements for the accountability system are stated in section 15-241 (ARS § 15-241) of the Arizona Revised Statutes. The accountability system created to satisfy the statute is referred to as the Arizona LEARNS. The school evaluation given by ADE to each school is referred to as the school’s achievement profile.

Overview of the AZ LEARNS Evaluation System

Arizona law (ARS § 15-241) mandates that the Arizona Department of Education shall compile an annual achievement profile for each public school.

It specifies that the profiles of schools serving grades K-8 shall be based on:
- Arizona Measure of Academic Progress (MAP)
- Percent of students who pass AIMS
The law specifies that the profiles of high schools shall be based on:
- Drop out rate
- Graduation rate
- Percent of students who pass AIMS
The law also calls for the ADE to use a research based methodology that shall:
- Include performance of pupils at all achievement levels
- Account for pupil mobility
- Account for the distribution of pupil achievement
- Include longitudinal indicators of academic performance.

General Process to Calculate an Achievement Profile

The achievement profile for a school serving grades 3-8 consists of the following performance measures:

A status measure based on the performance of students on all three sections of the AIMS (reading, writing, and mathematics) in the current year.
A measure of improvement in aggregate student performance on the AIMS compared to the baseline year.
A measure of growth in individual student performance. This is the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP). Elementary only.
A measure of whether the school made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In order to comply with the federal requirement that the state have an integrated accountability system, a school’s AYP determination is factored into the calculation of its achievement profile.
A measure of reclassifying a minimum of 30% Limited English Proficient students to Fluent English Proficient based upon English Language Learners performance on the Arizona English Language Learner Assessment.
Dropout Rate and Graduation Rate are measures included in the High School achievement profile. This is not included with the elementary school achievement profile.

Status points are determined on a six point scale based upon student performance on the AIMS in the current year. Growth points are determined on a six point scale based upon student AIMS performance of the two most recent years in relation to performance in the baseline year. Additional points are determined by the Measure of Academic Progress for Elementary schools which is based upon the progress of individual students from year to year in relation to their performance on the AIMS. High schools receive additional points by reducing dropout rate and increasing the graduation rate.

The sum of the points will yield a label of:

Performing Plus
Performing
Underperforming

In order to create the incentive for schools to improve the achievement of average and above-average students, a school can earn the highly performing or excelling labels by having a high percentage of students scoring Exceeds on the AIMS as compare to the state average. This could possibly fluctuate from year to year since it is based upon the state average, but roughly about 14 percent of the students at Exceed up to about 18 to 20 percent may result in the label of Highly Performing. With more than 20 percent at Exceeds there may be a strong possibility that a school will be Excelling provided the status and growth points are 19 or higher.

A z-score (standard or normal score) is calculated for each school. This determines if a school remains at Performing Plus or reclassified as Highly Performing or Excelling. The z-score is directly related to the percentage of students scoring at the Exceeds level on the AIMS in relation to the state average.

Status & Growth Points	Achievement Profile Label	Average Z Score (standard or normal score)
Less than 13	Underperforming
13 to 15.9	Performing
16 to 27	Performing Plus	< .45
16 to 18.9	Highly Performing	>=.45
19 to 27	Excelling	>=1.00

It is possible for a school to have a z-score of greater than 1.00 and have status and growth points of less than 19. The highest possible label that the school can receive is Highly Performing. Inasmuch as the school may have a high percentage of students at Exceeds the overall percent of students passing and/or one of the other status and growth indicators may not be strong enough to get the additional points for Excelling.