The Federal "No Child Left Behind" Act
Superintendents Prologue
Dear Parent or Guardian:
January 8, 2002, President Bush signed the No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001 into law. The law calls for sweeping
changes in public education. Among these is a new federal requirement
that all states and school districts in receipt of Title I assistance
must, by 2003, issue annual “report cards” to parents. The purpose of
the report card is to give parents information about their child’s
school in terms of academic achievement and the professional
qualifications of its teachers. In addition to sharing good news, the
report card helps parents make informed decisions about what to do in
the event that their school is determined to be “in need of
improvement,” based on annual test results, such as the Massachusetts
Comprehensive Achievement System (MCAS).
Attached on this web page are the district’s
report card and report cards for each of our 3 schools.
The information contained is divided into three
parts.
Part I: Teacher Qualifications
Part II: School Achievement in Mathematics and Reading
Part III: School Performance Ratings
Part I provides information about the
qualifications of the teachers on our faculty. The information is
divided into two parts: (1) the percentage of teachers who are certified
or licensed to teach in Massachusetts and (2) the percentage of classes
taught by teachers who are highly qualified in core academic areas such
as mathematics, science, reading, history, English language arts, etc.
Both pieces of information are intended to help you understand the
backgrounds and preparation of the teachers who are working with your
child. As you will see, most if not all teachers in the school are
certified, and most, if not all, are highly qualified. Those who are not
are either working on a waiver granted by the Massachusetts Department
of Education, or are long-term or permanent substitutes. While
qualified to teach within Massachusetts,
certain teachers are now in the process of demonstrating subject matter
competency through additional coursework. No Child Left Behind requires
that all teachers be highly qualified by the end of the 2005-2006 school
year, and thus what you will see in the percentages are indications of
how far our school has to go in order to comply with this deadline.
No Child Left Behind requires that test results
for reading and mathematics be reported annually. The information
contained in Part II summarizes how we did on the last round of MCAS
examinations. The data is broken down by grade level, subject area, and
the performances of different subgroups, or learning populations in the
school such as limited English proficient students or students with
disabilities. This information is similar to what you received about
your child’s MCAS scores in November. Now these data have been added
together to provide a snapshot of how the students in our schools have
performed as a whole.
Part III provides information about how well our
school is doing relative to others in the district and to its
performance in past years. The “Proficiency Index” (PI) scores for
Mathematics and English Language Arts are part of Massachusetts’
School Performance Rating system. This system has been set up to comply
with the accountability provisions of No Child Left Behind which
require, among other things, that each school make adequate yearly
progress (AYP) toward meeting a national goal of all students being
“proficient” in mathematics and English by the year 2013-2014. The
Proficiency scores and AYP ratings in the student achievement data are
meant to signal whether or not our schools are on target to meet this
goal or whether they fallen behind and are “in need of improvement.”
Fortunately, due to the serious effort of our students and the attention
given by teachers and principals, I am pleased to announce that all
three levels have made appropriate annual progress toward meeting the
national goal of Math and English proficiency by the 2013 -2014 school
year.
Sincerely,
Susan M. King, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Rockport Public Schools
Click
here for NCLB Report Cards by School:
