Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the largest federal K-12 education program, authorizes financial aid to local educational agencies (LEAs) for the education of disadvantaged children and youth at the preschool, elementary, and secondary levels. Since the 1988 reauthorization of the ESEA (The Augustus F. Hawkins-Robert T. Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement Amendments of 1988, or "School Improvement Act," P.L. 100-297 ), the accountability provisions of this program have been increasingly focused on achievement and other outcomes for participating pupils and schools. Since the subsequent ESEA reauthorization in 1994 (the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, P.L. 103-382 ), and particularly under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB, P.L. 107-110 ), a key concept embodied in these outcome accountability requirements is that of "adequate yearly progress (AYP)" for schools, LEAs, and (more recently) states overall. The primary purpose of AYP requirements is to serve as the basis for identifying schools and LEAs where performance is inadequate, so that these inadequacies may be addressed, first through provision of increased support and, ultimately, through a variety of consequences. This report is intended to provide an overview of the AYP concept and several related issues, a description of the AYP provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, and an analysis of the implementation of these provisions by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the states. The authorization for ESEA programs expired at the end of FY2008, and the 111 th Congress may consider whether to amend and extend the ESEA. This report will be updated regularly to reflect major legislative developments and available information. ESEA Title I, Part A has included requirements for participating LEAs and states to administer assessments of academic achievement to participating pupils, and to evaluate LEA programs at least every two years, since the program was initiated in 1965. However, relatively little attention was paid to school- or LEA-wide outcome accountability until adoption of the School Improvement Act of 1988. Under the School Improvement Act, requirements for states and LEAs to evaluate the performance of Title I-A schools and individual participating pupils were expanded. In addition, LEAs and states were for the first time required to develop and implement improvement plans for pupils and schools whose performance was not improving. However, in comparison to current Title I-A outcome accountability provisions, these requirements were broad and vague. Under the School Improvement Act of 1988, states and LEAs were given little direction as to how they were to determine whether performance was satisfactory, or how performance was to be defined, with one partial exception. The exception applied to schools conducting schoolwide programs under Title I-A. In schoolwide programs, Title I-A funds may be used to improve instruction for all pupils in the school, rather than being targeted on only the lowest-achieving individual pupils in the school (as under the other major Title I-A service model, targeted assistance schools). Under the 1988 version of the ESEA, schoolwide programs were limited to schools where 75% or more of the pupils were from low-income families (currently this threshold has been reduced to 40%). The School Improvement Act required schoolwide programs, in order to maintain their special authority, to demonstrate that the academic achievement of pupils in the school was higher than either of the following: (a) the average level of achievement for pupils participating in Title I-A in the LEA overall; or (b) the average level of achievement for disadvantaged pupils enrolled in that school during the three years preceding schoolwide program implementation. The embodiment of outcome accountability in the specific concept of AYP began with the 1994 Improving America's Schools Act (IASA). Under the IASA, states participating in Title I-A were required to develop AYP standards as a basis for systematically determining whether schools and LEAs receiving Title I-A grants were performing at an acceptable level. Failure to meet the state AYP standards was to become the basis for directing technical assistance, and ultimately consequences, toward schools and LEAs where performance was consistently unacceptable. Before proceeding to a description of the Title I-A AYP provisions under the IASA of 1994 and the NCLB of 2001, we outline below the general types of major provisions frequently found in AYP provisions, actual or proposed. Primary Basis: AYP requirements are based primarily on aggregate measures of academic achievement by pupils. As long as Title I-A has contained AYP provisions, it has provided that these be based ultimately on state standards of curriculum content and pupil performance, and assessments linked to these standards. More specifically, the Title I-A requirements have been focused on the percentage of pupils scoring at the "proficient" or higher level of achievement on state assessments, not a common national standard. However, when AYP provisions were first adopted in 1994, states were given an extended period of time to adopt and implement these standards and assessments, and for a lengthy period after the 1994 amendments, various "transitional" performance standards and assessments were used to measure academic achievement. Ultimate Goal: AYP standards may or may not incorporate an ultimate goal, which may be relatively specific and demanding (e.g., all pupils should reach the proficient or higher level of achievement, as defined by each state, in a specified number of years), or more ambiguous and less demanding (e.g., pupil achievement levels must increase in relation to either LEA or state averages or past performance). If there is a specific ultimate goal, there may also be requirements for specific, numerical, annual objectives either for pupils in the aggregate or for each of several pupil groups. The primary purpose of such a goal is to require that levels of achievement continuously increase over time in order to be considered satisfactory. Subject Areas: With respect to subject areas, AYP standards might focus only on reading and math achievement, or they might include additional subject areas. Additional Indicators: In addition to pupil scores on assessments, AYP standards often include one or more supplemental indicators. Examples include high school graduation rates, attendance rates, or assessment scores in subjects other than those that are required. Levels at Which Applied: States may be required to develop AYP standards for, and apply them to, schools, LEAs, or states overall. Further, it may be required that AYP standards be applicable to all schools and LEAs, or only to those participating in ESEA Title I-A. Disaggregation of Pupil Groups: AYP standards might be applied simply to all pupils in a school, LEA, or state, or they might also be applied separately and specifically to a variety of demographic groups of pupils—such as economically disadvantaged pupils, pupils with disabilities, pupils in different ethnic or racial groups, or limited English proficient pupils. In a program such as Title I-A, the purpose of which is to improve education for the disadvantaged, it may be especially important to consider selected disadvantaged pupil groups separately, to identify situations where overall pupil achievement may be satisfactory but the performance of one or more disadvantaged pupil groups is not. Basic Structure: While AYP definitions or standards may vary in a multitude of respects, their basic structure generally falls into one of three general categories. The No Child Left Behind Act statute places primary emphasis on one of these models, while incorporating a second model as an explicitly authorized alternative. In recent years, critics of current policy have increasingly focused their attention on a third model of AYP, which is now authorized through regulations and Secretarial waivers. The three basic structural forms for AYP of schools or LEAs are the group status , successive group improvement , and individua l growth models. The key characteristic of the group status model is a fixed "annual measurable objective" (AMO), or required threshold level of achievement, that is the same for all pupil groups, schools, and LEAs statewide in a given subject and grade level. Under this model, performance at a point in time is compared to a benchmark at that time, with no direct consideration of changes over a previous period. The key characteristic of the successive group improvement model is a focus on the rate of change in achievement in a subject area from one year to the next among groups of pupils in a grade level at a school or LEA (e.g., the percentage of this year's 5 th grade pupils in a school who are at a proficient or higher level in mathematics compared to the percentage of last year's 5 th grade pupils who were at a proficient or higher level of achievement). Finally, the key characteristic of the individual growth model is a focus on the past or projected rate of change in the level of achievement among the same pupils. Such models may compare current performance of specific pupils to past performance, or may project future performance of pupils based on past changes in their performance level. Growth models are longitudinal , based upon the tracking of the same pupils as they progress through their K-12 education careers. While the progress of pupils is tracked individually, results are typically aggregated when used for accountability purposes. Aggregation may be by demographic group, by school or LEA, or other relevant characteristics. In general, growth models would give credit for meeting steps along the way to proficiency in ways that a status model typically does not. To help illustrate the basic differences among these three AYP models, simplified examples of basic aspects of each are described below. The reader should keep in mind many other variations of these model types are possible. A group status model, such as the current primary model of AYP under the NCLB (described further below), establishes a series of threshold levels or AMOs, which are percentages of pupils scoring at a proficient or higher level of achievement on state standards-based assessments of reading and mathematics.