Data Show Schools Making Progress on Federal Goals

More schools nationwide will meet their annual achievement targets under federal law this year than last, if initial trends hold up. But parents in many states won't know how their children's schools did until well into the academic year.

By Sept. 1, just over half the states had released at least preliminary lists of the number of schools that had made adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind Act, based on 2003-04 test data.In general, the percent of schools that met all their targets either held steady or increased compared with the previous school year—sometimes substantially, according to an analysis conducted by Education Week .

Alaska, California, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, for example, saw increases of 10 percentage points or more in the proportion of schools meeting...