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It's my understanding that in my area most of the high-scoring districts are not making, or at risk of not making, AYP. In California the percent proficient counts toward AYP; an advanced student who threatens to take away instructional attention from a classmate teetering on the basic/proficient boundary is a net lose in terms of AYP. It may well be that your district is low-performing, but AYP here isn't really a measure of that.

Consider this example: 75% Advanced, 15% Proficient, 10% Basic or Below, with a couple of percentage points of wobble between ethnic or income groups and between language arts and math. As soon as one group hits 12% Basic/Below in one subject, the district fails AYP - but the parents of the 75% of students who are not at all served by instruction at the Basic/Proficient boundary get upset by redirecting all the classroom attention there. It is a very difficult line for the school to walk.

All of the districts are terrified of legislation requiring them to accept out-of-district students 'if there is space' and are scrambling to prove there is no space.

I hope that you either find your AYPs to be meaningless, or your districts to be more flexible.

I have never actually thought about it but I suppose there can be a difference of opinion on what constitutes a high-scoring district or school. However, at least locally, any school with 10%-12% of its students failing to score at least proficient would not be consider a "high scoring" school regardless of whether it met its specific AYP. Keep in mind that there is already loopholes for certain special ed. students. It really is rather shameful for scuh a high percentage to fail to reach proficient levels. Last year, the 4th graders at our school had 1% or fewer scoring below proficient although the percentage was 7% to 8% of 4th graders for the whole district.