What is NCLB?
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), signed into law on January 8, 2002, is one of the most ambitious federal education reform acts in recent history. This legislation extensively amends and reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Title I of the Act mandates improved achievement for disadvantaged students. The stated purpose of Title I is “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education, and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.”
Please submit questions to:
Carrie Furedy, Assistant Director
Curriculum and Assessment Department
Major components impacting school districts:
Accountability
NCLB places the responsibility for developing assessments on the states. Assessment systems must be aligned with the content, scope and depth of the academic standards. State assessments must be criterion-referenced as opposed to tests that are solely norm-referenced.
Arizona’s standards-based assessment tool is the AIMS test. Arizona has defined four levels of student achievement in reading and math. These four levels of student achievement are as follows:
▪ Exceeds the Standard
▪ Meets the Standard
▪ Approaches the Standard
▪ Falls far below the Standard
Parental Choice
Once a Title I school has been identified as one that needs improvement, corrective action, or restructuring, parents must be offered school choice. This includes choice as to what school the parent chooses to send their child to, the district assuming the costs of transporting the child. Kyrene currently does not have any schools identified for school improvement.
Public School Choice Enrollment Data
|
School Year |
Schools |
Students Eligible |
Students Participated |
Funds Available |
|
2009-10 |
No schools |
0 |
0 |
$0 |
|
2008-09 |
Lomas and KMS |
1947 |
3 |
$71,958.00 |
|
2007-08 |
Lomas and KMS |
2018 |
0 |
$183,185.70 |
Highly Qualified Staff
NCLB requires that a district ensures that by the end of the 2005-2006 school year, all public elementary and secondary school teachers in the state who teach a core academic subject are highly qualified. The term highly qualified is defined in NCLB regulation and means that the teacher must hold a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, have obtained full state certification s a teacher or passed the state teacher licensing examination and hold a license to teach in the state and have demonstrated a high level of competency.
August 25, 2003, the State Board of Education approved the Arizona Academic Support Division's requirements for teachers to become highly qualified under the No Child Left Behind legislation. This approval requires all Arizona public school teachers to hold a Bachelor’s Degree, a valid Arizona Teaching Certificate, and to demonstrate subject knowledge and skills in reading, writing, mathematics, and other core subject areas by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. This is the first time that professional learning is specifically identified in federal legislation aimed at improving student learning in all core subject areas.
What does this mean to Kyrene teachers and the Kyrene community?
This legislation means that by the end of the 2005-2006 school year, all teachers in Kyrene will be designated as highly qualified. It assures that all teachers will have the credentials and training to effectively teach children in all core areas to meet the ambitious academic achievement goals of NCLB. Core content areas are designated as Reading/Language Arts, Math, Science, Foreign Language, Civics and Government (Social Studies), Music, and Visual Arts.
Support for teachers to become highly qualified is being made available through the Kyrene District Office. Support and assistance will include on-going communications to teachers and administrators regarding qualifications, course offerings in content area knowledge and skills that will be accepted toward qualification, assistance to teachers in gathering documentation of qualifications, and data management of each teacher’s areas of qualification.
