In January of 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, which penalizes or rewards schools based on students’ performance on standardized tests. Nearly seven years later the questions surrounding this controversial legislation are as pressing as ever. Does No Child Left Behind make the grade?
According to the Harvard Civil Rights Project, NCLB has not significantly improved reading and math achievement scores and it has not helped narrow achievement gaps. The research shows the law has actually shortchanged those schools that serve predominantly disadvantaged, minority students because the law relies on sanctions rather than assistance. The racial and socioeconomic achievement gap in the National Assessment of Educational Progress ( NAEP) reading and math scores persist.
Furthermore, NCLB forces school districts to pay for remediation services for any student attending a “failing” school. This has led to financially strapped school districts diverting millions of dollars that should be used to reduce class size and student/teacher ratios (the only change which could lead to substantive, long-term improvement) to contracts with Kaplan and other private tutorial services. This has been a huge boon to the private test prep industry, which has expanded exponentially since the implementation of NCLB.
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