Steep Climb to NCLB Goal for 23 States

Modest proficiency targets set by many in law's first five years.

With the congressional effort to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act at a standstill, schools and districts will need to stay on target toward the law’s goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics in the next six years—or else face sanctions or interventions.

That process will be especially hard in 23 states that made the achievement targets relatively easy to meet in the first years of implementing the 6-year-old federal law. Starting with the current school year, schools and districts in those states will have to make annual gains of 10 percentage points or more in the proportion of students scoring as proficient in those subjects, says a report released last month.

“These states were seemingly prudent in the beginning … because they felt they weren’t prepared” to help schools achieve rapid increases in student achievement, said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, the Washington research group that produced the report. “But in a way, they delayed...