New methods for measuring teacher and school performance are being widely discussed at the federal, state, and local level. Recent education policy trends, such as improvement of the quality of state data systems, and the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provide an opportunity to reconsider what factors school performance-reporting systems should include. Critics of the No Child Left Behind Act have pointed to the narrowing effects of that law's focus on mathematics and reading achievement and have called for efforts to broaden criteria used to rate schools.
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