Thirty-two city schools -- more than half of the Pittsburgh Public Schools' eligible total -- met the federal achievement standard known as "adequate yearly progress" for 2008-09.

That's an improvement from 2007-08, when 25 made AYP.

District officials released the information at a school board Education Committee meeting last night.

AYP, created by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, is the seal of approval for school districts and individual schools nationwide.

To make AYP, schools and districts must meet certain criteria for reading and math achievement, including achievement of certain "subgroups" such as black and special-education students. To determine achievement levels in this state, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment is given to students in grades three through eight, plus grade 11.

Factors such as attendance and graduation rates also play into AYP.

Officials announced Monday that the district made AYP for the first time this year. They said Pittsburgh is the largest district in the state ever to make AYP.

Information about individual city schools, provided last night, showed that:

• Three of the district's eight accelerated learning academies -- Arlington PreK-8, Fort Pitt PreK-5 and Weil PreK-8 -- made AYP. Only one, Northview PreK-5, did so for 2007-08.

• Only one of 10 high schools -- Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts -- made AYP. CAPA and Westinghouse High School made AYP for 2007-08.

• The district's new university prep school opened last school year with only a ninth grade. Because it had no students for testing, it was judged on the performance of 11th-graders districtwide and missed AYP.

• Sixteen of 18 K-5 schools, seven of nine middle schools and five of 14 K-8 schools made AYP.

The district did not provide the test scores and other data showing how schools made, or failed to make, AYP. The state has said it will release that data in a couple of weeks or more.

In the achievement category, a school made AYP if at least 56 percent of students scored advanced or proficient in math and if at least 63 percent of students scored advanced or proficient in reading. The targets also applied to all subgroups in a school.

But there are alternative doorways to AYP. For example, a school can miss a proficiency target and still make AYP if it showed considerable progress in that area. Most of the city schools that made AYP for 2007-08 did so on the strength of that provision, called "safe harbor," or because of other statistical allowances.

While the district has 66 schools, only 60 were eligible for AYP, said Linda Lane, deputy superintendent for instruction, assessment and accountability. She said some special education and alternative education buildings are not separately counted; rather, their students are counted with their "home schools."

Superintendent Mark Roosevelt said the results showed a need to focus attention on high schools; the district is still in the early stages of high-school improvement efforts.

School board member Randall Taylor said he objected to the event held Monday at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District to celebrate the district's achievement of AYP. He said the high-profile announcement is a distraction from the "tragic" test scores that still dog many schools.