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Moriah Horner assesses the current application of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and its effect on student achievement. She examines the background goals and requirements of NCLB, and how the implementation of its policy has failed to accomplish these goals. Some of the primary goals of NCLB are unattainable, causing many schools to be perceived as failing. These goals hinge upon standardized testing, which has proven to not be an accurate measurement of student achievement, teacher qualification, or school success. Under NCLB legislation, the schools that need the most help are punished the most. She uses the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test scores as well as opinions of educational professionals to study the effect NCLB and standardized testing have had on student achievement. While recent policy changes have decreased NCLB accountability, they have not improved or changed the fundamental problems for NCLB.
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The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) alters federal-state relations by expanding the federal role further into a primary function of state and local governments and raises questions about how federal, state, and local policies interact—that is, conflict or reinforce each other. Early indications suggest that states are differently positioned to assume the additional responsibilities required under NCLB. While there has been some intergovernmental collaboration and cooperation, the ambitious expectations, strict timelines, and exacting set of regulations combined with the fiscal constraints operating on states imposed significant burdens on state and local implementation. It is our perspective that NCLB is testing the limits of the federal system with a fundamentally different model—one that assumes that by centralizing rules and educational policy, institutions and practice can be rapidly changed to accommodate new requirements.
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The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is potentially the most significant educational initiative to have been enacted in decades. Among the salient elements of this initiative are requirements that all students have qualified teachers and be given the opportunity to attend high-quality schools. The NCLB legislation also requires that states raise academic achievement levels for all students, including those with disabilities. Linked to these components and related issues, this article discusses the major components of the NCLB along with implications and recommendations for educators.
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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.