Proportion of Schools Falling Short on AYP Rises, Report Says

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan listens to President Barack Obama during an event earlier this year in Arlington, Va. Duncan has warned that a huge proportion of schools will fall short this year on reading and math benchmarks if Congress does not reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

—AP

States’ progress varies in meeting bar on NCLB as 2014 deadline looms

By Michele McNeil

The proportion of schools failing to make adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind Act last school year rose to 38 percent, up 5 percentage points from the year before, as the 2014 deadline for getting all students “proficient” in reading and math approaches, says a recent report issued by the Center on Education Policy.

At the same time, individual states’ progress toward that goal varies widely, based on the center’s analysis of state test data released last month. In Texas, for example, only 5 percent of schools failed to make AYP in the 2009-10 school year, and in Wisconsin, only 6 percent. That stands in stark contrast to the District of Columbia, where 91 percent of schools did not make sufficient progress, or Florida, where 86 percent were unsuccessful.

Those latest data from the Washington-based education policy organization comes as U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pushes Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which the NCLB law...