Oregon Public Broadcasting

Preliminary ratings required by the 'No Child Left Behind' law, reveal modest improvements for Oregon's schools.

Under the Bush-era law, each state has to grade its schools every year, to identify which are getting better and which ones aren't.

72 percent of Oregon's schools met the federal standard for 'Adequate Yearly Progress' this year -- that's two percent more schools than last year.

Susanne Smith with the Oregon Education Department says most of the improvements came in middle and high schools.

Susanne Smith: "We do think that a lot of the work we've done, the system changes that we've worked on with our school districts are finally starting to come to fruition."

The aim of the 'No Child Left Behind' law is to get schools to improve their test scores -- so that by 2014 all students have math and language skills in line with their grade level. 

Some critics say the goal is unattainable.