“No Child Left Behind” received overwhelming bipartisan support when it was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. The law requires that schools test all students every year in grades three through eight, and report their scores separately by race, ethnicity, low-income status, disability status and limited-English proficiency. NCLB mandated that 100% of students would reach proficiency in reading and math by 2014, as measured by tests given in each state.
Although this target was generally recognized as utopian, schools faced enormous penalties – eventually including closure or privatization—if every group in the school did not make adequate yearly progress. By 2008, 35% of the nation’s public schools were labeled “failing schools,” and that number seems sure to grow each year as the deadline nears.
However, since the law permitted every state to define “proficiency” for itself, it’s no surprise that most states announced impressive gains. But the states’ claims of improvement were contradicted by the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Eighth grade students improved not at all on the federal test of reading even though they had been tested annually by their states in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Meanwhile, the states responded to NCLB by dumbing down their standards so that they could claim to be making progress. Some states declared that between 80%-90% of their students were proficient, but on the federal test only a third (or less!) were. Because the law demanded progress only in reading and math, schools were incentivized to show gains only on those subjects. Meanwhile, there was no incentive to teach the arts, science, history, literature,
geography, civics, foreign languages or physical education.
In short, accountability turned into a nightmare for American schools, producing graduates who were drilled regularly on the basic skills but were often ignorant about almost everything else. Colleges continued to complain about the poor preparation of entering students, who not only had meager knowledge of the world but still required remediation in basic skills.
No Child Left Behind, indeed. More like, No Child Getting Ahead.
