The No Child Left Behind Act gets a lot of criticism, but it does have the beneficial effect of focusing attention and providing motivation for improvement.

This fall Culler Middle School found itself targeted for sanctions under the federal law. Its special education students had failed to make adequate progress for the second year in a row.

Because the school receives Title I funding, it will be required to pay for tutoring or for transportation for students who want to transfer.

Now parents have taken the positive step of forming a group called Culler P.R.I.D.E. dedicated to improving the school’s reputation.

Part of the group’s mission is aimed at changing perceptions — getting out the word about the school’s positive characteristics.

According to students, parents and school officials, those include a student body that is ethnically and economically diverse. Culler students speak more than 40 languages, and 75 of its 460 students are English Language Learners. Nearly 75 percent of its students qualify for the free and reduced-price lunch program.

Students say the teachers are caring and the school is small enough that they receive individual attention.

Offering other resources to Culler students and their families is the Community Learning Center that provides before- and after-school programs for students and functions as a hub for delivering health and support services, as well as additional help from teachers in math and reading.

Research suggests that the involvement of parents in the new Culler P.R.I.D.E. group will pay dividends. One of its goals is to increase parental involvement overall.

“When schools, families and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer and like school more,” said a recent report from the Southwest Education Development Laboratory.

Researchers say that parental involvement often begins to taper off when students move from elementary school to middle school, perhaps because the structure of middle school is larger, more impersonal and parents must contact more than one teacher.

The support of an organization such as Culler P.R.I.D.E. will make it easier for parents to continue their involvement. Plans include a link on the school Web site to keep parents informed of activities.

When Culler Middle School was singled out for negative attention under No Child Left Behind, parents could have ignored the report card or complained. Instead they swung into action to make things better. That’s constructive.