NCLB Choice Option Going Untapped, But Tutoring Picking Up

Districts are paying scant attention to the provision of federal education law that allows students in low-performing schools to transfer elsewhere, though more are providing children with the supplemental services to which they are entitled.

New data submitted to the federal government show that eligible students who transferred to a higher-performing public school under the No Child Left Behind Act averaged 1 percent nationwide last school year. On the tutoring front, 11 states reported that 20 percent or more of eligible children received supplemental educational services that school year.

States had to submit those and other performance data to the U.S. Department of Education by Dec. 31, as part of their applications for federal aid under the law. Education Week obtained the state-by-state data under a Freedom of Information Act...