Federal Law Calls for School and District Accountability Reports

Indeed, Coordinated Compliance Review teams will look at your SARCs and your district accountability reports with a critical eye, asking if they met both state and federal requirements.

Here are key sections from NCLB's Section 1111(h), which you can review for yourself online.

"... report cards shall be concise, and presented in an understandable and uniform format and, to the extent practicable, provided in a language that parents can understand." (Section 1B)

"... The local educational agency shall ... publicly disseminate the information to all schools in the school district served by the LEA and to all parents of students attending those schools in an understandable and uniform format..." (Section 2E)

Federal Dept. of Education officials released guidelines in September 2003 which explained what they meant by "dissemination" (among other things). They don't mince words, and in the first few pages (Section A-3), you'll find the following directive: "Because not all parents and members of the public have access to the Internet, posting report cards on the Internet alone is not a sufficient means for disseminating State and district report cards."