Schools may achieve a rating of “Meets AYP” or “AYP Not Met” (click to view reports for each school).  AYP stands for “adequate yearly progress”, and refers to the federally-mandated goal that all students demonstrate proficiency in reading and math by the year 2014.  The academic data is reported in terms of the percentage of students testing at the “proficient” or above level. 

If you have questions about your child’s or school’s test results, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher or the school principal.  They will be glad to work with you and your child to help you understand the results and apply them to help your child achieve academic success.

How to Use This Guide:
To view a school’s results, click on the name of the school.  A chart will be displayed that provides an overview of the school’s results.  If a cell in the chart is shaded white, the school does not enroll enough students in that subgroup to receive an AYP rating (25 students in academic areas, 40 for participation).  You will also find links to several reports documenting the school’s results.  For an explanation of what these reports are and how to read the data, click on the tab at the top of the page.

The following provides explanation about how each of our schools performed. For a full explanation of AYP means and what RRPS is doing about it, click here.

Proficiency: Indicates whether the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency in the subject area met state targets.
Participation: Indicates whether at least 95% of the students in the subgroup completed the test.

Click on a school name below to view the AYP report for that school (or another name to switch views):

About the New Mexico New Mexico Standards-Based Assessment (NMSBA): 

The New Mexico Standards-Based Assessment (NMSBA) is given annually in the spring to students in grades 3-8 and in Grade 11.  The NMSBA tests students in reading, math, and science.  The percentage of students demonstrating proficiency on the NMSBA determines a schools rating for purposes of the state accountability system and compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.  For more information on how the NMSBA determines a school’s rating, click here.

Each state develops and administers its own achievement tests, and each state determines how well students must score on the tests to be considered “proficient.”  This makes state-to-state comparisons New Mexico’s standards and tests, especially in math, are considered to be among the toughest in the nation.

 

Based on the results of the New Mexico Standards-Based Assessment (NMSBA), schools may achieve an annual rating of “Meets AYP” or “AYP Not Met”.  AYP stands for “adequate yearly progress”, and refers to the federally-mandated goal that all students demonstrate proficiency in reading and math by the year 2014.  The academic data is reported in terms of the percentage of students testing at the “proficient” or above level. 

Results of the NMSBA are reported for all students in a school, and are further broken down by and reported for eight different “subgroups” of students: five ethnic classifications (African-American, American Indian, Asian American, Caucasian, and Hispanic), English-language learners (ELL), students with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged students.  All students, regardless of ethnicity, disability, or other factors are expected to achieve at the same level in order to be considered “proficient.”  Schools must have at least 25 students in a subgroup to receive an AYP rating based on academic results, and at least 40 students in a subgroup to receive a rating for participation.

In order for a school to meet AYP, the percentage of “proficient” students must meet or exceed the state targets in every area where the school is rated.  In addition, at least 95% of students overall and in every “subgroup” must take the test (called “participation”), and the school must meet targets for attendance or graduation rate.  A school can be rated on as many as 37 separate measures.  If the school falls short in any area -- even just one -- it does not make AYP.   

The issue for the majority of Rio Rancho schools that did not make AYP continues to be results for students with disabilities.  The provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) require, with very few exceptions, that students with disabilities take the same tests and achieve at the same level as all other students.  Like many districts around the state and country, Rio Rancho has faced challenges helping our special needs students meet this high standard. 

We are very concerned that at most schools the percentage of students with disabilities meeting the rigorous standards required of all students has not significantly increased, especially in reading.  We are commissioning outside experts to come into Rio Rancho, analyze how we educate special needs students, and make recommendations for improvement.  We will also bring together teachers from schools throughout Rio Rancho who have had exceptional success teaching special needs students so they can share their techniques with each other and with other teachers throughout the district. 

It is important to note that most Rio Rancho students do well on the tests, and this is reflected in our overall results.  Most schools met AYP in more than 90% of the areas on which they were rated -- that’s an “A” under the standard grading scale. 

The NMSBA is just one indicator of a school’s quality -- a snapshot based on how students did on one particular day on one particular test.  Rio Rancho Public Schools uses many other tools to measure student and school success, including other assessments and the exams, projects, and assignment grades students receive throughout the year.  Some of these other indicators are included on this Web site. 

We would also note that every year the bar schools must meet in order to achieve AYP gets higher.  This year, the state goals (called “annual measurable objectives” or AMO’s and measured in terms of the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency) went up about 10%.   By 2014, the federal law states that 100% of students, regardless of economic status, disability, ethnicity, or fluency in English, must meet the same high standards of proficiency in reading and math.  This is a formidable goal, and we are working hard to achieve it, but as the targets continue to get higher, it becomes harder to reach every target schools must meet to earn a “Meets AYP”.

About the NWEA “levels tests”: These computer-generated assessments were developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) and are aligned with the New Mexico Standards, Benchmarks, and Performance Standards that define what students should know and be able to do at each grade level.  Students in grades 3-8 take these tests, in language arts, reading, and math, twice each year, in the fall and in the spring.  The assessments are used to measure how much students learn during the year.  The charts for each individual school show how students in various grade levels performed compared to growth targets set by NWEA.

The NWEA tests are called “levels tests” because they determine at what “level” students perform.  As a student takes the test on the computer, the program adjusts the difficulty of the questions on the test.  If a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be more difficult, and vice versa.  In this way, the NWEA assessment program can determine with great accuracy how well a student performs particular skills and whether or not the student is performing at grade level.

NWEA results are expressed in RIT scores, which permit comparison of scores across grade levels.  The higher the score, the more advanced the material the student knows. 

 

The following chart provides a rough idea of how RIT scores translate into grade-level proficiency as defined by the state at the end of a school year:

Grade level	RIT End-Of-Year Grade Level Score Ranges
	Math	Reading	Language Usage
3rd	197-207	193-205	197-207
4th	205-216	201-212	203-213
5th	212-225	207-217	209-219
6th	217-231	211-222	212-222
7th	222-236	214-225	214-224
8th	227-242	217-229	217-227

NWEA tests are given annually to some three million students in 3,100 school districts in 26 states, so this data can be used to compare the performance of students in Rio Rancho against those in other states.  For an overview conducted by the Fordham Institute and NWEA on how state standards compare, click here.

About the ACT:
The ACT is one of the two major college entrance and readiness exams and is the one taken by a large majority of college-bound students in New Mexico. 73% of 2008 Rio Rancho seniors took the ACT, so the data reflects student performance for a significant percentage of Rio Rancho’s Class of 2008.

The average scores for RRHS students on the ACT exceeded the state averages in all areas and the national average in all areas except mathematics (where for the past several years, RRHS’s average scores have steadily increased). The charts provide trend data showing how RRHS performed against the state and national averages overall and in individual subject areas.

The final chart in this section indicates the percentage of students whose performance on the ACT suggests they are ready to master college-level work. Here again, though the results show that RRPS has a long way to go in assuring every student is college ready, RRPS’s results exceeded the state averages in all areas and the national average in all areas except for mathematics.

 

RRPS ACT Reports:

• College Ready
• Composite Scores for 2007-08
• Trend Data

Quality of Education Survey:
Parents of Rio Rancho Public Schools students are asked to fill out the Quality of Education Survey every spring. This survey provides Rio Rancho Public Schools with feedback from parents on how they feel their child’s school is doing. The first ten questions on the survey are mandated by the state and are the same for each school in New Mexico.

 

The second five questions are developed by the school district and are the same for every Rio Rancho school. For a district-wide overview and trend data for the Quality of Education Survey, please click here.

Be sure to check out the sites and resouces listed below for more information:

• www.ped.state.nm.us/2008AYP/index:  The State of New Mexico Public Education Department AYP Web site includes detailed information on how school accountability under No Child Left Behind works in New Mexico and a variety of additional data
  
  
• http://164.64.166.20/aypdl/DocLibrary.aspx:  State database providing 2008 school ratings and results for every public school in New Mexico
  
  
• http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2008/01/10/index.html:  The Education Week 2008 “Quality Counts” report includes the survey of state assessment standards.
  
  
• http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/18845034.html  The Hoover Institute/Education Next study on state standards across the nation
  
  
• http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=376:  The Thomas B. Fordham/Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) 2007 study on state proficiency standards in states that use the NWEA for evaluation of student performance and growth.
  
  
• To view the Public Education Department (PED) reports on individual schools, click here.