issue guide: No Child Left Behind

Background & Facts

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, passed into law in January 2002, is the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, first passed in 1965. The law may be familiar to veteran educators as Charter I or Title I, as it was commonly known in earlier years. Although recent political attention on NCLB has focused on President Bush's changes to the act, at its core the act still does what it has done for decades; provide extra funding to schools with the nation's poorest students.

As with most federal laws, NCLB is not a brief document; its ten titles cover everything from teacher training to programs for students learning English. The meat of the act, however, is Title I, which gives states a huge chunk of change to support schools with large numbers of poor students (at least 25%). At the school level, Title I money is mostly tagged to create extra help programs for kids who are falling behind or – if over 40% of students are low-income – to programs that improve learning all around.

The changes made under President Bush keep that funding in place, but also lay on top massive requirements to insure that students move toward a goal of 100% proficiency in reading and math by 2014. (It's only fair to note that the administration acknowledges that although 100% is a goal worth striving for, it is likely not achievable – after all nothing can really be 100%.) States who take NCLB funding (that's all fifty of them) have to set up statewide testing and track test results broken down not just by school but by subpopulations in schools – racial minorities, disabled students and students learning English. Schools have to make sure all of these groups are moving toward being 100% on grade level by 2014.

If schools that receive Title I money (those schools with many low income students) aren't making what the act calls “adequate yearly progress,” there are consequences for the schools and perks for students and parents. After two years of a school not making progress, students have a right to transfer to a better school; after three years, students are entitled to free tutoring; after four years, schools must go into “corrective action,” meaning they largely get dismantled and built up again from scratch. (More and more schools are choosing to forego their Title I money rather than have to comply with this part of the law.)

NCLB is not just about funding for poorer schools and testing, however. Other parts of the act include:

Requirements that all teachers be “highly qualified” (roughly equivalent to “certified”) by the 2005-2006 school year and that all new hires in Title I schools be highly qualified.
A requirement that schools use “proven educational methods.” Although there's a lot of wiggle room in what is considered “proven,” President Bush's education team encourages methods that they think have a better track record, most notably using a phonics (or sound) based system to learn how to read.
The right of students who are victims of violent crimes in their schools to transfer to a “safe school” and the right of students in persistently violent schools to transfer out.
Funding to support:
- Bilingual and English as Second Language;
- Family literacy programs;
- Education of migratory children;
- Programs for neglected or delinquent children;
- Technology in the schools;
- Safe and drug-free schools;
- Community learning centers;
- Innovative programs;
- Charter schools;
- Rural education;
- Education for homeless children.

Requirements - at a glance

Who must get tested:

Under NCLB, all public schools must use testing set by their state.

Type of testing required under NCLB:

States choose the exact tests to use, but students must be tested at a minimum in math and reading in 3rd-8th grades and once between 10th-12th grade (by 2005-2006) and in science at least once in grades 3-5, grades 6-9, and grades 10-12. (Dept. of Education)

Measures schools must meet under NCLB:

Again, the states decide the specific measures, but whatever they are they must move students toward 100% proficiency by 2013 (in other words schools must work toward having all of their students achieving on grade level by 2013). (Dept. of Education)

What happens if schools don't meet their measures: (Dept. of Education)

If a school doesn't meet its measures for two years, it gets labeled a school "in need of improvement." (The technical term for meeting ones measures is making "adequate yearly progress" or AYP.) For low income schools that get NCLB money (also known as "Title I" money), there are further consequences. Schools that don't receive NCLB money have no further consequences.
- Students who go to a "school in need of improvement" have a right to transfer to another school.
- Students who go to schools that don't meet their measures for three years have a right to receive free tutoring services.
- After four years of not making progress, districts must then take "corrective action."
- After five years, a school must be restructured.

What else happens to schools that receive Title I money?

Money

Money states get under for Title I (the part of NCLB that covers testing and accountability) (DOE) (pdf):
- 2001: $8.4 billion dollars (the law was known as ESEA in 2001)
- 2004: $12.3 billion dollars (that's a 46% increase)
Money that's designated by the feds to pay for the actual testing of students under Title I of NCLB (GAO) (pdf):
- $2.7 billion over seven years
Amount of money the GAO (pdf) says testing will cost over 7 years:
- $1.9 billion (if only multiple choice is used)
- $5.3 billion (if multiple choice and open ended questions are used)
- $3.9 billion (if states continue to use the testing they do now)

Results

The jury's still out on whether the act is doing what it sets out to do - that is, improve student achievement. Some studies are promising, but others throw some doubt.

Nationwide testing
from 2005 shows that math scores slightly improved since the law went into effect, but that average reading scores have not budged. See our Achievement facts page for more info.
State tests show much more promising results, but because states have incentives to water down tests to make their schools look good, some argue that national tests are a truer indicator of student improvement (NYT). Here's some of the state results:
- In 2004, 24 thousand (25% of all public schools) were not making "adequate yearly progress" (Washington Times). In 2005 that number inched up to 24,470 schools (27%) (WP).
- An Education Trust study
  that looked at math and reading results in 24 states (all states that had consistent records for the past three years) found that 23 out 24 states showed improvement in students' math scores and 15 out of 23 states had better results in reading.
- A Center on Education Policy report
  that surveyed 49 states found 72% of school districts reporting higher reading scores. 21 states also said the gap between white and black students' achievement was narrowing. A second CEP report from 2008 showed similar results.
- A Northwest Evaluation Alliance report
  found test scores going up (in a large sampling of districts), but suggested that the achievement gap between white and minority students may be widening, not narrowing.
- A 2007 Center on Education Policy report showed "significant" gains in middle school math testing in 37 out of 41 states with good data - and in middle school english testing in 20 out of 39 states (WP and CEP)

States in rebellion

There have been rumblings among states and school districts from the get go, saying NCLB sets standards too high and
doesn't provide enough money to keep up with its demands (see pro & con). Those complaints have become increasingly loud with many states now considering laws that would limit spending on NCLB compliance (NYT), one state officially voting to prioritize state goals over NCLB goals (NYT), and another suing the feds for - so they say - underfunding the law's testing requirements (NYT & NYT). The National Conference on State Legislatures's February 2005 report recommended changes in NCLB - the latest parry in the states vs. the feds scuffle over the law.

Tinkering over time

To respond to state criticisms and complaints, the Department of Education makes the occasional waiver or tweak on testing regulations. One of the more ambitious changes in the works would allow states to chart their progress by seeing how individual students improve their skills - rather than comparing, say, how this year's 4th graders hold up to last year's 4th graders. (NYT) Twenty states originally applied to be among ten states to pilot the alternative testing (NYT), but so far only North Carolina and Tennessee have been green lighted (WP).

Reports in '07 that the states were messing with their graduation rate numbers led the Department of Education to propose regulations in the other direction - toward more strict oversight. Regs setting up a uniform way to calculate graduation rates could be in force by the end of '08. (WP)

Reauthorization 2007

NCLB is slated to be reauthorized in 2007. While critics of the bill see 2007 as an opportunity to cut back on the act's requirements, the president and a bipartisan commission on NCLB have ambitious notions on how to expand the bill. It's not clear which direction Congress will lean.

The president would tweak the bill by increasing the incentive fund for teacher recruitment, requiring states list national test scores along state scores and adding a voucher program for students in schools that aren't keeping up.

A bipartisan panel, commissioned by Congress, recommended requiring testing in 12th grade, tracking individual student improvement (and rewarding/penalizing teachers on how their students fare), creating nation-wide standards and tests, and adding science to the list of areas students should be proficient in by 2014. (WP)

Pushing in the opposite direction, a group of Republicans have said they want to give states the option of waiving NCLB's tight standards (WP).

The guy in the House who may have the most say on the issue - the head of the Education Committee - says his bill will probably give schools more flexibility in how they can measure their progress at the same time as rewarding teachers who do a better job of teaching their kids. (WP & WP)

Updated June, 2008

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