Introduction: Some Legacies of No Child Left behind

Using John Dewey’s writings and hypothetical thinking, this paper presents a critical review of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and its implication for reform. It begins with Dewey’s early work and includes his greatest success at Arthurdale WV in the 1930’s. The importance of constructivist thinking is juxtaposition among the reformist views of today’s assessment driven policy to qualify for funding. Like Dewey, the author argues for experiential learning to make connections in real life situations presented through school opportunities. In trying to highlight transparency, closing failing schools, bringing equanimity, raising standards, and improving curriculum, NCLB produced a culture of assessment without its accompanying experiential component. Learning best occurs when the experience connects with other aspects, so transfer of the knowledge becomes easily retrievable.

Race Ethnicity and Education, 2007

Hursh wider society, it diverts our attention from the issues that must be tackled if we are to improve all students' learning and develop a more equitable society. Therefore, I will begin by providing a short description of NCLB focusing on the characteristics most pertinent to my argument here: mandatory standardized testing used to evaluate students, teachers and schools, and the consequences schools face if their test scores do not achieve 'adequate yearly progress.' I then turn to the central rationales for passage of NCLB, in particular that standardized testing and accountability will improve student learning for all children and close the achievement gap, and then provide evidence that NCLB may be undermining education and exacerbating inequality. The promise of No Child Left Behind NCLB passed as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001 and, as such, will need to renewed and is likely to be amended by the now Democratically controlled Congress and the President in 2007. NCLB affects almost every aspect of elementary and secondary education, most obviously curriculum and assessment, but also increases the qualifications for teachers and teachers' aides, opens up schools to religious groups and groups, such as the Boy Scouts, that discriminate, and requires that students' names and contact information be given to military recruiters and that schools adopt curriculum that has been 'scientifically tested.' However, I will focus on the testing, accountability and curricular aspects of NCLB. Further, because NCLB leaves it to the states to develop their assessments and states vary in the consequences the tests have for students (for example in New York, Texas and about 10 other states, students must pass one or more standardized tests to graduate from secondary school, and in New York City and Texas students must pass tests for promotion from specific 'benchmark grades'), my evidence for the success or failure of NCLB necessarily relies on state rather than national data. President Bush promoted NCLB as a means of replicating at the federal level the 'success' previously achieved at the state level, such as in Texas (where he was governor) and New York. NCLB requires that 95% of students in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school be assessed through standardized tests aligned with 'challenging academic standards' in math, reading and (beginning in 2007-08) science (US Department of Education, 2003c, p. 4). Furthermore, states must permit the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to administer standardized tests to a sample of students in tested grades so that students can be compared across states. Each state is required to submit to the federal government a plan for student assessment and how they will determine whether schools are making adequate yearly progress. Each year, an increasing percentage of students are to demonstrate 'proficiency' until 2014, at which time for all states and every school, all students (regardless of ability or proficiency, whether they have a disability or recently immigrated to the United States and are English language learners) are expected to be proficient in every subject. Note 1. NCLB passed in the house 381-41 and in the Senate 87-10.

In 2001, the U.S. congress signed the No Child Left Behind bill into law. Arguably, this has been one of the most significant educational reform policies of the 21st century. Much has been written about its effect on students, teachers, curriculum, administrators and others. Nonetheless , a comprehensive review of the empirical studies on NCLB does not exist within the extant scholarship on this topic. The purpose of this article is to review the empirical literature related to NCLB and its effect on various groups and at various levels of education from 2001 to 2010. Recommendations for future research on this topic are presented as well.

2010

The controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) brought test-based school accountability to scale across the United States. This study draws together results from multiple data sources to identify how the new accountability systems developed in response to NCLB have influenced student achievement, school-district finances, and measures of school and teacher practices. Our results indicate that NCLB brought about targeted gains in the mathematics achievement of younger students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, we find no evidence that NCLB improved student achievement in reading. School-district expenditure increased significantly in response to NCLB, and these increases were not matched by federal revenue. Our results suggest that NCLB led to increases in teacher compensation and the share of teachers with graduate degrees. We find evidence that NCLB shifted the allocation of instructional time toward math and reading, the subjects targeted by the new accountability systems.

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

Journal of the American Academy of Special Education Professionals, 2008

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was passed by Congress with overwhelming bi-partisan support and signed into law by President George Bush in January 8, 2002. The expressed long-term goal of NCLB is proficiency in reading and math for all students by the 2013-2014 school year. The law identifies specific steps that states, school districts, and schools must take to reach that goal. Each state has been required to develop and administer annual assessments in grades 3 through 8 in reading and math and once in grades 9 through 12.

2008

2006

Educational Foundations, 2004

Education Commission of the States, 2004

Abstract: Exhaustively researched and analyzed, this report examines the progress states made between March 2003 and March 2004 on 40 requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). It also explores the issues and challenges remaining; looks at some of the ...

2004

Critical Studies in Education, 2009

2007

A new report released by the Center on Education Policy, "Answering the Question That Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind?" has received a great deal of attention in the press and is likely to be cited often in the upcoming debate on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Using states as their unit of analysis, this report concludes that since the implementation of NCLB in 2002, on average, test scores have increased, the achievement gap has narrowed, and achievement gains post-NCLB have increased faster than before NCLB. Despite its attempt and intent to carefully analyze the complex issue of test score improvement before and after the implementation of NCLB in 2002, however, there are some important weaknesses in the analysis that may have resulted in a much more optimistic picture of the impact of the legislation than the data warrant. The report acknowledges several important methodological weaknesses, but other such weaknesses are never mentioned. Among these additional problems are issues of scope, measurement, and selection-all of which ultimately call into question the robustness of the findings, rendering the report's conclusions far from definitive.

The phrase "No Child Left Behind" has become a familiar expression in American education circles and in popular culture. The sentiment implied by these four words is noble. However, the effects of the top-down implementation of the high-stakes testing provisions of the law have been anything but salutary for public school children, teachers, and administrators. This claim is supported by data describing many of the ways in which well-intentioned but desperate educators , from the statehouse to the schoolhouse, have been driven to game the system in ironic defense of the children, teachers, and administrators least equipped to defend themselves. It is argued herein that, instead of reauthorizing the stronger accountability tenet of NCLB, it might do very well to let it fade away.