Dover, Del.–August 11, 2003 At a press conference held this
morning at the Delaware Department of Education, Secretary of
Education Valerie A. Woodruff announced school and school
district accountability ratings for more than 170 public schools
and 19 school districts under Delaware’s recently revised
accountability system. As a result of the No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) Act of 2001, Delaware was required to modify its existing
accountability system to meet the requirements of the far-
reaching federal law. According to NCLB, all states are required
to conduct an annual assessment of all students in grades 3-8
and one high school grade. The results of the annual assessment
are then used as the primary means to determine school and
school district accountability ratings. Adequate Yearly Progress
(AYP) is designed to measure academic performance of not only
all students in a particular school but of subgroups within the
student population. One of the key changes to Delaware’s
existing system, and for all states a