Nogales schools are marching toward an ambitious goal: having 100 percent of students pass the state tests (called AIMS in Arizona) by 2014.

It’s called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), said Angelina Canto, school improvement director in the Nogales Unified School District No.1. The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires all the nation’s schools to strive to meet the AYP goals.

Last year, three local schools failed to make AYP �“ Lincoln Elementary School, Nogales High School and Pierson Vocational High School, Canto said.

“Only NHS did not make AYP this year,” she said.

The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) posted the AYP designations on July 29, a few weeks after the annual AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) scores came out. The tests measure progress in math, reading and writing. Most students took the tests in April.

Overall, 10th graders at NHS appeared to meet the AYP goal in math �“ ¬40 percent passing the test, Canto said. But two groups of students fell below that goal �“ those in special education and English Language Learners (ELLs).

“Whatever the passing percentage is, you must make that with your sub-groups, too,” Canto said.

Last year, the ELL subgroup reached the goal in math, but it was a different group of students, Canto said. This year, the 10th grade ELLs did not meet the goal of 48.6 percent passing in the reading section of the AIMS test.

Not making the goal at the high school level (in all the 10th grade groups at NHS) means that the district as a whole did not make AYP for 2009, Canto said. Statewide, 74 percent of schools and 60 percent of districts made their AYP goals this year.

“It’s (AYP) a wonderful goal and one we’ll continue to strive for,” Canto said.

ADE also posted the scores for its state designation called AZ LEARNS.

“AYP is a snapshot of how you did for that one year,” Canto said. “AZ LEARNS is looking at a school’s performance over a few years.”

Last year, the state rated Lincoln Elementary as “under-performing.” But this year, the school earned a rating of “performing plus” on the list.

“It took a tremendous amount of work to bring about that change,” Canto said.

Most Nogales schools shared that rating, including NHS, according to the AZ LEARNS list. Two schools �“ Mary Welty Elementary and Coronado Elementary �“ were rated as “highly performing.”

NHS was designated as “performing” and so was Pierson. As a small school, Pierson could receive one of only two labels �“ “under-performing” or “performing,” Canto said.

This year, AZ LEARNS listed 21 percent of Arizona schools as “excelling,” 13 percent as “highly performing,” 32 percent as “performing plus,” 30 percent as “performing,” 3 percent as “under-performing,” and 1 percent “failing.”