Recently I put some data together to look at Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Index over time in New Hampshire (download the spreadsheet below to use the tool). NH calculates an index score based on individual student performance. The goal is to achieve an index score of 100 overall in each federally mandated sub-category (ethnic/racial groups, low-SES, and special education). By all the AYP index files together in a single Excel workbook I was able to create a set of pivot charts that can be used to look at the gap between special education and overall AYP index over time. This workbook can be used to answer the question “is the achievement gap being closed?”.
Currently the workbook is set-up to compare special education to whole school index scores. However, by simply changing the variable in the “values” field you can easily look at changes in other areas too. For example, you could compare the performance of whole school to low-SES. This comparison can be done by district, for multiple districts (by selecting more than one district in legend field), or by school. It is a quick way to look at the performance of the district or school on AYP.