Clearly, with No Child Left Behind, that was one of the early concerns: Do we have the capacity, not just with the testing companies, but with the state agencies, to do this?

We're required by No Child Left Behind to have 100 percent proficiency by 2014, so anything that takes away from instructional time from those three areas (math, reading and writing) at the elementary level is kind of critical for us to look at,

If you are not getting better, you are getting left behind.

Legislators have been hearing about all of the hoops schools have to jump through with the No Child Left Behind Act, in addition to what was already a system of state accountability.

Because of No Child Left Behind, sadly, history is being put on the back burner or taken off the stove altogether in many or most schools, in favor of math and reading,

[As commissioner, Yecke was a big supporter of the No Child Left Behind law, which requires schools to test students every year and slaps penalties on schools where students don't meet test score goals.] Right now, I don't see any resistance [to No Child Left Behind], ... I see acceptance. Implementation is taking place. Perhaps [educators] had once seen it as threatening, but once everything was in place, they found they could rise to the challenge.