Home > School Issues Channel > Archives > No Educator Left Behind Archive > No Educator Left Behind

No Educator Left Behind is a series providing answers from the U.S. Department of Education to questions about the federal No Child Left Behind Act and how it will affect educators. If you have a question about No Child Left Behind, send an e-mail to Ellen Delisio, and we will submit your question to the Department of Education.

Question:

Does the No Child Left Behind Act really provide parents with more information about their children's performance?

U.S. Department of Education:

Under No Child Left Behind, each state must measure every public school student's reading and mathematics achievement in each year in grades 3-8, and at least once during grades 10-12. By school year 2007-2008, state assessments in science also will be underway.

Those assessments, it is important to note, are based on academic content and achievement standards determined by the states. Each state defines its own standards and each state determines what tests will be used to measure student achievement.

The assessments provide parents with objective data about where their children stand academically. Only a child's parents and school receive the results of that child's tests. Individual student scores will not be made public.

President Bush's budget for fiscal year 2005 includes $410 million to provide grants to states to pay the cost of developing the standards and assessments required by the NCLB Act. Those funds also may be used to develop standards and assessments in subjects other than those required by NCLB and to improve the reliability and validity of assessment strategies.

Read previous questions and answers in our No Educator Left Behind archive.