It is probably no coincidence that Charlottesville High School’s Freshman Academy got more love from administrators after the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001. Arguably the most influential—and maligned—federal education act since the 1964 Civil Rights Act pushed public school integration, NCLB uses test scores to measure “school accountability” and sets annual standards with the idea that by 2014, all but a handful of students will demonstrate “proficiency” in reading and math.
Part of that “accountability” is demanding annual pass-rate improvements for a school’s “subgroups,” such as African Americans, the “disadvantaged” or those with disabilities. An entire school can fail to meet NCLB requirements if scores for its black students or its poor students aren’t improving sufficiently.
While no one attacks the goals of NCLB, plenty go after its methods of enforcement. If a school doesn’t make “adequate yearly progress” two years running, it must provide for students to transfer to other schools; miss it for five years, a school is to be taken over by the state, with license to clear staff, install new curriculum, or turn it over to a private company. But federal dollars haven’t been as forthcoming as promised—this year, NCLB funding was $24 billion, $15 billion less than it was authorized to allocate. And because there is no nationally approved test, some states have allegedly watered down testing standards in order to claim higher pass rates.
The legislation, a collaboration between Senator Ted Kennedy and President George W. Bush, is up for renewal this year, and many are taking the opportunity to review its successes and failures. Time magazine gave NCLB a C overall, with an A for informing the public on school failure and an F for helping improve schools.
Advocates and critics alike have found data to support their arguments in a report recently released from the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy, “Answering the question that matters most: Has student achievement increased since No Child Left Behind?” While the report says that math and reading achievement has gone up and achievement gaps between student demographics at least aren’t growing, it can’t tell if NCLB is the reason.
