NCLB Student Subgroup Accountability 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Under NCLB, what percentage of students in each subgroup were states initially required to assess in reading and math?
- 80%
- 90%
- 95% (Correct answer)
- 100%
Correct answer: 95%
NCLB required that at least 95% of students in each subgroup participate in state assessments, and failure to meet this threshold could itself cause a school to miss AYP.
Question 2: A district receives Title I funds and one of its schools fails AYP for five consecutive years. What is the required intervention under NCLB?
- Supplemental educational services
- Corrective action
- Restructuring (Correct answer)
- Public school choice only
Correct answer: Restructuring
After five years of failing AYP, a Title I school must implement a restructuring plan, which could include reopening as a charter school, replacing staff, or state takeover.
Question 3: What concept describes the statistical adjustment that states could apply to subgroup AYP determinations to account for measurement error?
- Confidence intervals (Correct answer)
- Standard deviation bands
- Normal curve equivalents
- Value-added margins
Correct answer: Confidence intervals
NCLB allowed states to use confidence intervals around proficiency rates to account for statistical uncertainty when determining whether a subgroup met AYP.
Question 4: Under NCLB, which subject areas were required to be assessed for subgroup accountability purposes by 2005-2006?
- Reading, math, and science
- Reading and math only (Correct answer)
- Reading, math, writing, and social studies
- All core academic subjects
Correct answer: Reading and math only
NCLB required annual assessments in reading and mathematics for subgroup AYP purposes, with science assessments added later but not tied to AYP.
Question 5: What is 'disaggregated data' in the context of NCLB's subgroup accountability requirements?
- Student performance data combined across all grades
- Student performance data broken out separately for each identified subgroup (Correct answer)
- Normalized test score data adjusted for demographic factors
- Cumulative multi-year performance averages
Correct answer: Student performance data broken out separately for each identified subgroup
Disaggregated data refers to separating student performance results by each identified subgroup so that achievement gaps between groups become visible.
Question 6: How did NCLB treat recently arrived English language learners (in their first year in U.S. schools) for assessment and AYP purposes?
- They were fully exempt from all assessments for three years
- States could exempt them from the English language arts assessment for one year, but they still had to take math assessments (Correct answer)
- They were automatically counted as proficient for AYP purposes
- They were excluded from the ELL subgroup for their first two years
Correct answer: States could exempt them from the English language arts assessment for one year, but they still had to take math assessments
NCLB allowed states to exempt first-year English language learners from the English language arts assessment for one year, though they still had to be assessed in math.
Question 7: Under NCLB, what was the primary purpose of requiring separate AYP reporting for the 'students with disabilities' subgroup?
- To reduce the number of students placed in special education
- To ensure schools could not mask low performance of students with disabilities in overall scores (Correct answer)
- To allow states to set lower standards for this group
- To qualify schools for additional special education funding
Correct answer: To ensure schools could not mask low performance of students with disabilities in overall scores
Separate subgroup reporting ensured that the academic performance of students with disabilities was visible and could not be hidden within aggregated school-wide averages.
NCLB Student Subgroup Accountability 4
Under NCLB, what percentage of students in each subgroup were states initially required to assess in reading and math?