Latest No Child Left Behind Act Stories
By Joe Nelson County schools have shown the biggest gains this year in state standardized test scores since reporting began in 1999, but a substantial number of them are failing to make adequate yearly progress mandated by the federal government. The local trend reflects statewide numbers in the Accountability Progress Report released Thursday by the California Department of Education. The report shows that although the 2008 state Academic Performance Index showed more schools meeting...
By Kimberly S Wetzel Some East Bay schools and school districts met state and federal achievement standards in 2008, while others stumbled, according to accountability data released today by the state Department of Education. Several school districts, including Liberty Union High, San Ramon and Oakland, increased their overall academic performance index score -- a number from 200 to 1,000 that measures student achievement -- over 2007. But other districts, including Antioch and Oakley...
By FM WIGGINS PETERSBURG -- Improvements in Adequate Yearly Progress scores were the topic at last night's School Board meeting. "We're not where we need to be, but we're not where we were either," Superintendent Dr. James Victory said. He added that all schools did an incredible job and that there are solid areas of growth across the board. Under the federal No Child Left Behind act, each state has developed and implemented measurements for determining whether its schools are making...
By Timothy Puko; Karen Roebuck Pennsylvania's education secretary wants schools to know that when their leaders fail, a state takeover is still an option. "There are a couple of blinking lights that are blinking very brightly. There are a couple of districts that have given me enough concern," state Secretary of Education Gerald L. Zahorchak said. "We're real serious right now. So it won't take a lot of time." Across the country, educators and policy-makers are trying to determine how to...
The Virginia Department of Education last week released annual statistics that judge whether schools made adequate yearly progress in teaching reading and math. The results were exactly as expected: Suburban schools with mostly white, middle-class students performed well on state tests. Poorer, urban schools, where most kids eat free lunches, have failed yet again. It's the same old story retold every year since No Child Left Behind promised all that would change. Where exactly is the...
By Joe Surkiewicz Since 1975, federal law dictates that when making placement decisions about children with disabilities, educators need to look first at the school the child would attend if he or she didn't have a disability. And if that law were followed -- and children with disabilities weren't segregated into separate classrooms away from their peers -- the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education wouldn't be in existence. Instead, it's celebrating its 20th anniversary. "In many...
By John Hanna THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The state's looming budget problems are giving an unsettling edge to what educators recently described as positive news about Kansas' public schools. One report to the State Board of Education last week said graduating Kansas high school seniors keep scoring better than the national average on the ACT college entrance exam. Another one said 94 percent of Kansas school districts and the state's poorest schools saw sufficient improvement in student scores...
By James Joyce III When results from the spring WASL test were released by the state's schools chief Tuesday morning, the figures for the Yakima School District mostly mirrored the statewide trend: there were some ups and downs. Now, school officials locally and throughout the state are analyzing the data to determine what it says about how well they are educating children. Not an easy task. "It's so hard to say anything definitive about scores that go up and down from one year to the...
The annual troubles of the Lewiston school system's diversity and the strict standards of No Child Left Behind are growing worse. This year, four schools failed to make "adequate yearly progress," which some consider equal to a "failing school." Yet the one-size-fits-all approach of the federal guidelines cannot allow for such a designation. When it comes to Lewiston, NCLB only reveals what's known: The learning needs of the city's immigrant population are a challenge. About 20 percent of...
By SARA PLUMMER; ANDREA EGER See all 45 schools named to the 2008 Oklahoma School Improvement List: www.tulsaworld.com/ improvementlist Union's Briarglen and the Eighth Grade Center did not meet standards. The number of suburban schools on the Oklahoma School Improvement List doubled to four with the addition of Union's Briarglen Elementary and the Eighth Grade Center. The state Department of Education on Thursday declared that 45 schools need improvement this year, down from 53 in...
