District of Columbia Public Schools - No Child Left Behind Compliance

No Child Left Behind Compliance

In accordance with Section 1116, a provision of the No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB), entitled “Academic Assessment and Local Education Agency and School Improvement", the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) of the District of Columbia oversees compliance with Adequate Yearly Progress(AYP). A large portion of meeting AYP is based on standardized tests performance; in the District this summative assessment is called the DC CAS, District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System.

Many schools are failing to meet AYP, even though DCPS educators offer support and tools to students to be academically successful. DCPS has created an evaluation tool to assess schools by more than their standardized test scores. They call this Quality School Review, which uses the Effective Schools Framework to assess schools through rubrics on topics such as classroom observations, interviews with parents, students, teachers, and school leadership, staff surveys and reviewing artifacts (i.e. handbooks, student work). In 2007, Karin Hess of the The National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment conducted an analysis has also gone into the alignment of DCPS standards and the DC CAS Alt, the assessment for students with cognitive disabilities.