Here is a case on point regarding growth v. AYP when evalutating charter schools that serve extremely at risk students. The Life Learning Academy, in San Francisco, serves formerly drop-out, adjudicated youth. It uses very innovative methods, and successfully re-engages its students in learning and reincorporates them into the public school system. Some of its graduates go to college, and some pursue careers. It functions as a substitute family for many of its students whose own family backgrounds are deplorable.
Life Learning Academy didn't make 2003 AYP. Nonetheless, in 2002 it was eligible to compete a for a Public Charter Schools Grant Program Dissemination award because it showed enough quantifiable growth in targeted standardized test scores to meet California's eligibilty requirements. Not only was it successful, it implemented a very strong, outwardly focused project. Currently, it is among fifteen finalists for a prestigious Innovation in Government Award from the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation, at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. It is the only school in the country to get this far in the competition. Nonetheless, if it continues to fail AYP it could be
targeted for reconstruction.
By every standard and then some-except AYP-for the student population it serves, the Life Learning Academy is successful. California's State Superintendent of Public Instruction has joined superintendents of other states to seek some degree of reevaluation with regard to NCLB. Hopefully, the Life Learning Academy and schools like it will not suffer.
Posted as a reply to:
AYP as a temporary substitute for value-added by Jim Peyser 
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