No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 - American Education

A revision and reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to make every primary and secondary school student proficient in English, mathematics, science and other core subjects by the 2013–14 academic year. To achieve that goal, the $10 billion-ayear law requires every school to demonstrate year-to-year improvements of at least 2% in student academic performance—or face loss of federal subsidies. Each state must demonstrate student academic performance by testing students annually in English and math in grades 3 through 8 and at least once during their four high school years. Schools must test students in science at least once during each of three grades spans—3 to 5, 6 to 9 and 10 to 12. Schools must also ensure that “English-language learners” achieve fluency in English and master all school academics. NCLB requires teachers of core academic subjects to demonstrate knowledge of their subjects either by having majored in those subjects in college or by passing subject-matter tests. Aimed especially at schools with disadvantaged children, NCLB allows parents in schools that fail to reach state achievement goals after three successive years to transfer their children to other schools or to charter schools and to use $500 to $1000 of federal moneys paid to the schools for private tutoring and after-school and summer school classes. Some $2 billion in NCLB funds are set aside for tutoring programs. NCLB encourages states to replace the curricula and staffs of schools that fail to make academic progress after four consecutive years.

Although many educators hailed NCLB for establishing minimum national academic standards, opponents charged that it violated the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which leaves to the states all powers not expressly conveyed to the federal government by the first nine amendments. The word education does not appear in any of those amendments and has therefore always fallen under state purview. By accepting federal grants to education, however, school districts tacitly accept the conditions that come attached to any loan or grant in aid, and, with the federal government providing about $55 billion, or 10% of what states and local districts spend on public elementary and secondary education, the states had little choice but to accept NCLB or forfeit federal aid. Some school districts did just that—in Connecticut, Illinois, Vermont and Virginia, among other states. Some states challenged the law on the basis that the federal government underestimated the costs of administering the law and has forced states and local school districts to spend local tax dollars to enforce a federal law. A federal court rejected the challenge, however, on the grounds that the states and local districts have the option of withdrawing from NCLB.

To try to end state and local challenges to the law, the U.S. Department of Education allowed states to select their own tests to measure student academic proficiency each year, although it insisted that students continue to participate in the NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS testing program. The results muddied the entire assessment picture, as many states used tests that allowed students to score startling gains while showing negative progress on federal NAEP tests. In effect, the states adopted low standards and grade inflation. State tests found 89% of Mississippi fourth graders proficient in reading in 2004–05, for example, but NAEP testing found only 18% to be proficient. Similarly, 79% of nine-year-olds were proficient in reading on the state test in Texas, but only 29% on the national test. Here are some of the widest testing disparities:

Percent Proficiency

State Tests NAEP Tests

• Alabama 83 22 
• Arkansas 61 28 
• California 39 21 
• Colorado 63 37 
• Connecticut 67 38 
• Florida 60 32 
• Georgia 87 26 
• Idaho 90 41 
• Louisiana 14 20 
• Maine 53 36 
• Massachusetts 56 40 
• Michigan 75 32 
• Mississippi 89 18 
• New Jersey 82 38 
• New York 70 34 
• No. Carolina 81 33 
• So. Carolina 36 26 
• Tennessee 88 27 
• Texas 79 29 
• Vermont 81 37 
• Wisconsin 80 33

The results were similar for fourth grade math tests and for both eighth grade reading and math tests. Confusing matters still more were the annual yearly progress (AYP) findings, which showed student proficiency progressing at the minimum acceptable rate of 2% in only 28 states, and, in fact, average NAEP scores in reading for both fourth and eighth graders in 2005 showed almost no change since data were first collected in 1992. About 64% of fourth graders and 73% of eighth graders score at or above “basic,” and only about 30% in either grade are “proficient” in reading. About 36% of fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders were proficient in math, and federal officials faced the realization that reducing federal aid to failing states, as required under NCLB, would only accelerate rates of failure. Only 36% of graduating seniors are proficient in reading, and only 17% are proficient in math. Student scores in science are equally dismal: 29% of fourth and eighth graders and a mere 18% of 12th graders displayed proficiency in 2006—a slight decline, on average, since 1996. Although 22 states met their AYP goals for English-language learners in speaking and understanding English, only two met the requirements for such students in reading, and only five met targets in math. Even more discouraging was the failure of all but 10 states to make any progress closing the socalled achievement gap in academic proficiency between white students and the nation’s burgeoning minority students.

If NCLB has proved less than effective in the nation’s schools as a whole and a disaster for minority students, it has proved a borderline disaster in districts with academically superior schools whose standards are already so high they are unable to register the required “annual yearly progress” and thus stand in technical violation of the law and risk sharp reductions in federal funds.