| AYP | Adequate Yearly Progress. As required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, all students are expected to meet or exceed State standards in reading and in math by the year 2014. AYP determinations are thus made for schools and districts based on the performance of the student population in aggregate and for subgroups toward that goal. To receive an affirmative 2003 AYP determination, schools and districts must meet a student participation requirement and either the State's Cycle III performance target for that subject, or the school or district's own Cycle III improvement target and an additional attendance or graduation indicator. |
| CPI | Composite Performance Index. In 2001-2002, the Department introduced the "Proficiency Index"-a measure of the distribution of student performance in a school relative to attaining grade-level proficiency reflected by student performance on standard MCAS tests scored with reference to grade-level learning standards. Beginning in 2003, the State was required to expand the measure used to assess school and district performance and improvement to include data from the MCAS-Alt assessment program. Beginning with the 2003 AYP determinations, the assessment results of students participating in MCAS-Alt assessments, together with those derived from standard MCAS tests, are used to generate a "Composite Performance Index" on which AYP determinations are based. |
| EB | Error Band. The designation "Yes/EB" refers to a subgroup, school, or district found to have met its improvement target due to an error band greater than 2.5 CPI points. Final Cycle III determinations will likely not be calculated for error bands greater than 2.5. |
| N | Number of cases or students. AYP determinations are only calculated for aggregate student populations or for subgroups of twenty students or greater. Furthermore, AYP determinations for schools are only calculated for students who were enrolled in that school as of October 1, 2002. AYP determinations for districts are calculated for all students in that district. |
| N < 6 | For the secondary AYP indicator (attendance or graduation), AYP determinations are only made for groups of six or more students. |
| SH | Safe Harbor. Refers to schools found to have met their improvement target due to the federal provision allowing schools that have decreased the percentage of students not yet proficient or advanced by 10 percent or more to receive an affirmative AYP determination. |
| Met Target (Performance) | For the current review period, the Cycle III performance target in English Language Arts (ELA) is a CPI of 75.6 and Mathematics is a CPI of 60.8. |
| Met Target (Improvement) | A district, school, or subgroup's Cycle III improvement target is 100 minus its baseline CPI, divided by 6 (the number of remaining Cycles through the year 2014). For the current review period, the Mid-cycle improvement target is two-thirds the Cycle III target. |