Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) sizes the school improvement market. The tougher it is to make, the greater the demand for industry services. First, by schools and districts to avoid or get out of "in need of improvement" (or worse) status.  Second, by parents, in effect, when that designation (and worse) triggers SES, school choice and reconstitution. 

NCLB's requirement that schools and districts count statistically significant subgroups separately in AYP was intended to force the system to put real resources against the challenge of serving the students typically left behind. It was intended to create "stretch goals" for administrators. It was intended to change a mindset of school performance based on the mythical average student to a view based on real individual students.

Arguably, any easing of that pressure makes it easier for the system to stick with the old mindset and resist resource  reallocation. Indeed the resistance to the individual components of AYP demonstrates both that the approach is  having its intended effect, and that the system is not eager to move in its direction. Of course, if too many political interests agree that it is too tough to make, the concept itself is at risk.

On the other hand,  there are practical limtations to what even the most diligent educators can do with any student, and the law should yield to such realities.

In an ideal world, school improvement industry groups would know precisely the effect of the proposal on the market,  have a position and weigh in on the policymaking process - just as any trade association in any other industry would on any issue affecting its members' broad interersts. None are there yet, but as with SBR, this is an area where their needs for information and analysis are precisely the same, and this might generate an interest in collective action.

Special needs students may be a special case for easing the AYP rules. On the other hand, if the Administration gives here, will those who want to make it easier to make AYP infer they can press for still more concessions? This is something to watch closely.

_________________________________

The U.S. Department of Education will allow public schools nationwide to test thousands more disabled students with alternate — and in many cases simpler — tests than their classmates take…. New regulations, announced Wednesday by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, effectively triple the number of students who can take alternate tests and have their scores count toward a school's average score… Currently, about 10% of all special-education students can take such tests; that could grow to 30%, or as many as 530,000 students, 3% of all students tested annually….

The 2002 law requires that schools steadily increase the percentage of students who master basic work. Schools that don't keep improving face escalating sanctions that can include replacing staff.... While only the most severely disabled students now take modified tests, which compensate for their disabilities, the new regulations allow less-severely disabled students, including those with behavioral problems and attention deficit disorders, to do the same — and to have their scores counted….

No Child Left Behind is up for reauthorization this year on Capitol Hill, and a panel in February recommended cutting the 3% allowance to 2%. Such a move would mean millions of mildly disabled students would have to take tests identical to their classmates', with no special accommodations.

Greg Toppo, USA Today, April 4