President Bush promised to make educating every child his top domestic priority and reform a system that has failed the most needy students in our nation's classrooms. He proposed a comprehensive, bipartisan plan to improve overall student performance and close the achievement gap between rich and poor students in America's more than 89,599 public schools. The President’s No Child Left Behind Act was passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority and is already showing results for America’s children.

On January 8, 2002, the President signed into law his historic education reforms to better enable educational excellence for every child in America. The No Child Left Behind Act helps parents, educators and children by:

• Supporting Early Learning: No Child Left Behind targets resources for early childhood education so that all youngsters get the right start on reading and math.
• Measuring Student Performance: A student's progress in reading and math must be measured in each of grades 3 through 8 and at least once during high school.
• Providing Information for Parents: States and school districts must give parents detailed report cards on schools and districts, explaining which are succeeding and why.
• Giving Options Over Failing Schools: Children will no longer be trapped in failing schools. If a school continues to fail some children will be able to transfer to higher-performing local schools, receive free tutoring or attend after-school programs.
• Ensuring More Resources for Schools: Today, public schools spend an average $7,000 a year per student. Under President Bush’s leadership federal funding for education has increased 59.8% from 2000 to 2003.

Progress in Strengthening America's Public Schools

Since President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law, the Bush Administration has worked closely with state and local education leaders to ensure that these important changes reach the classroom. And the new law is beginning to show results.

• Through the new Reading First program, $412 million has been distributed to 20 states to help schools and districts improve children's reading achievement using scientifically proven methods of instruction.
• States have implemented the public school choice provisions of the Act to allow parents of students in low-performing schools to transfer to a better public school. Additionally, states have identified supplemental service providers to provide after-school instruction and tutoring to students enrolled in schools in need of improvement.
• The Bush Administration has approved every state’s locally developed education accountability plan. Every state plan is uniquely designed to give parents and communities the tools they need to achieve the fundamental goal of the President’s bipartisan education law – making sure that every school is performing at grade level in reading and math.

Since the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President Bush the U.S. Department of Education has been working to implement this landmark Act to ensure that every child receives a high quality education.

In fact, President Bush has announced that his Administration has approved every state’s locally developed education accountability plan. Every plan is uniquely designed to give parents and communities the tools they need to achieve the fundamental goal of the President’s bipartisan education law – making sure that every school is performing at grade level in reading and math.

Stronger Accountability for Results

• Improving Student Performance: The Act calls for sweeping reform of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act by turning federal spending on schools into a federal investment in improved student performance.
• Setting High Standards: No Child Left Behind redefines the federal role in K-12 education by requiring all states to set high standards of achievement and create a system of accountability to measure results.
• Ensuring that Students Learn: It insists that states set high standards for achievement in reading and math and test every child in grades 3 through 8 to ensure that students are making progress.

Resources to Support the Reforms

• The Resources to Succeed: Under President Bush’s leadership federal education funding has increased 59.8% from 2000 to 2003.
• Support for Title I: Federal funding for Title I has increased an estimated $10.4 billion to help disadvantaged students succeed - a 30 percent increase over 2000 levels.
• Recruit and Retain High Quality Teachers: Nearly $3 billion in federal funds were made available under No Child Left Behind to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers and principals.
• Making Sure Every Child Can Read: Federal funding for reading programs increased nearly $1 billion so every child in America learns to read.
• Choices for Parents: Provides an estimated $200 million for charter schools to expand parental choice and free children trapped in persistently failing schools.
  Greater Flexibility and Local Control
• Empowering Local Schools: Offers school districts powerful tools to provide the best possible education to all children by cutting federal red tape, by creating broader more flexible federal education programs that place decision-making at the local level where it belongs.
• Trusting Parents and Local Educators: A fundamental principle of No Child Left Behind is that local parents, educators, and school boards know the needs of their students’ best and trusts them to make the best decisions for their children.
• Funding Where it Does the Most Good: No Child Left Behind frees local school districts to spend up to half their federal education dollars where they believe it will do the most good for their students.

Expanded Options and Choice for Parents

• Empowering Children in Low Performing Schools: Parents whose children are trapped in low performing schools receive unprecedented federal support including options for children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are trapped in low-performing schools.
• Students in failing schools may transfer to higher-performing public schools or get help such as tutoring.
• Students in dangerous schools may transfer to safer public schools.
• Inform parents by requiring states to provide annual report cards of school performance and statewide progress.

Emphasis on Teaching Methods that Work

• President Bush supports reading instruction based upon research-based methods that work to ensure that every public school child reads at or above grade level by third grade.
• The No Child Left Behind Act strengthens teacher quality for public schools by investing in training and retention of high-quality teachers.