No Child Left Behind

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The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Federal legislation has many different components which are explained in the linked document. Those components have enabled the district to focus its instructional emphasis on the District's Content Standards and Benchmarks at every grade level in Reading and Mathematics. The District has sharpened this instructional focus by aligning instruction and assessments to the District's Content Standards and Benchmarks. The data collected from these assessments gives teachers specific information about which instructional strategies have been successful in assisting students in mastering the benchmarks for a specific grade level.

The important points to keep in mind:

1. Progress in student achievement is based on the comparison of this year's class of students to last year's class, and an increase in proficiency is expected.

2. NCLB requires that sub-groups, such as students with Individual Education Plans, must have 30 students in each of the reporting grades of 4,8, and 11 before these scores need to be reported. Since Ankeny is a larger district, we must report the progress in student achievement of sub-groups.

3. The sanctions for not meeting NCLB expectations apply only to those buildings in the district who receive Title I funds. Ankeny only has three buildings, Northwest, East, and Southeast, who receive Title I funds.

4. NCLB is one vehicle for improving student achievement and progress is based only on the students' scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills or the Iowa Test of Educational Development. Ankeny uses multiple tools or assessments to track student achievement, so NCLB is just on snapshot of the picture of student achievement.