Glimmers of hope in No Child.

Something good is coming out of adequate yearly progress reports. In pockets across the nation, such as in North Carolina and Mississippi, great gains are happening.

"What we're seeing and what we track at the school district and state levels is that AYP is showing positive effects in increased student achievement" from 2002 to 2003 and from 2003 to 2004, according to Daria Hall, policy analyst at the Education Trust.

North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools and Chapel Hill schools saw their achievement gaps between blacks and whites start to close, Hall says. In 1998, the third-grade math achievement gap between black and white students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg was 40 percentage points. In 2002, the gap was 35 percentage points. But this past year, the gap narrowed to 17 percent.

In Chapel Hill, the third-grade math achievement gap was 41 percentage points in 1998, compared to 39 percentage points in 2002. But this past year, the gap was only 12 percentage points.

This past year, nearly 75 percent of Mississippi's schools were making AYP, according to Henry Johnson, Mississippi's education superintendent. "We still have a long way to go in absolute terms compared to other states," Johnson says.

In the last decade, fourth-grade math has improved by 21 points, compared to the nation's 15-point gain, he says. "Remember that Mississippi's starting point was lower than the national average's starting point but we're getting better faster than the rest of the country," Johnson adds.

And eighth graders are showing great improvement in math. In 2003, 48 percent of eighth graders were proficient or advanced compared to this past year's 60 percent, says Susan Rucker, associate state superintendent for innovation and school improvement.

The great leaps in Mississippi are attributed to various factors, including intense professional development, particularly greater training for middle school teachers. Many of the teachers lacked enough training in every subject, and especially in a new rigorous curriculum aligned to standards and which includes higher order thinking skills.

"One thing is clear is that professional development must be ongoing," Johnson says. "It can't be a one-shot deal. It has to be relevant to what teachers are doing in the classroom on a daily basis."