In 2010-11, the New Mexico Public Education Department, along with the education departments of several other states, requested a waiver from the federal government to develop a state accountability system rather than be held to the federal accountability system of Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) which was part of the federal mandate of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).   The New Mexico Public Education Department developed a school accountability system known as A-F School Grades to measure school and student growth in multiple categories. 

 The purpose of the A-F School Grades system is to focus on school accountability in order to:

 ·        Help poorly performing schools, while highlighting the methods of successful schools.

·        Hold schools accountable for all students so that every student has an opportunity to graduate career or college ready.

·        Measure student grade level performance to meet standards developed by New Mexico educators.

·        Acknowledge unique circumstances at schools.

·        Provide incentives to continually improve every student’s performance.

The table below lists the differences between the previous AYP method used to measure how schools are performing and the new School Grades method.

School year 2010-11 was the year for baseline grades in the A-F Grading system.  Each year that students are tested will provide more comparison data that schools can use to determine areas of improvement as well as trends in the data. The A-F Grading System is still in its beginning stages, and is still not a complete indicator of how well students and schools are performing.  But it is a more valid measuring tool and a beginning step in a better direction than the previous AYP mandate.  Below are links to the A-F Grades for each Dexter School over the past three years: