No Child
Left Behind Turns 12
Lindsey Burke January 9, 2014 at 2:18 pm
http://blog.heritage.org/2014/01/09/child-left-behind-turns-12/
Yesterday marks a dozen years since No Child
Left Behind became law. Yesterday was also notable
because the groundwork for NCLB’s legislative
predecessor, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was laid 50 years ago
as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and “Great Society”
initiatives. While ESEA wouldn’t be signed into law until the following year in
1965, it, along with the creation of Head Start and increased federal
intervention into higher education comprised the education components of
Johnson’s War.
“Better
schools” were listed as one of the “chief weapons in a more pinpointed attack”
on poverty. But 49 years after ESEA was signed into law, and 12 years after No
Child Left Behind was enacted, better schools are still out of reach for
millions of students across the country, dimming their prospects for economic
mobility and opportunity.
What do we
know about No Child Left Behind at twelve?
Under No
Child Left Behind, every child must be deemed proficient in reading and math by
the 2014-15 school year – a fast-approaching deadline.
School districts that fail to meet that universal proficiency mandate, known as
“Adequate Yearly Progress,” by the coming school year face a number of sanctions
under the law, ranging from crafting school improvement plans to complete
restructuring of the school. While NCLB mandated universal proficiency, the law
permitted states to define what it meant for a student to be proficient, and
for states to set their own cut scores on state tests. Some states reconfigured
the way they scored state assessments to increase the number of students who
passed state tests, while becoming less transparent about students’ academic
performance.
In what many
researchers have deemed a “race to the bottom,” No Child Left Behind’s AYP
sanction was perhaps its greatest overreach—and most significant policy flaw.
In addition
to the new mandates imposed on states and local school districts, NCLB
continued a trend by national policymakers to have a “program for every problem,” resulting in growth
in federal intervention.
In fiscal
year (FY) 2012, the federal government spent nearly $25 billion on the dozens of programs that are
authorized under No Child Left Behind. This wide range of programs that
falls under NCLB strains school-level management. States and
school districts must spend time completing applications for competitive grant
programs, monitoring federal program notices, and complying with federal
reporting requirements.
When
President Johnson signed the original ESEA into law, he sought to “bridge the gap between helplessness and hope.” President
George W. Bush’s 2001 reauthorization included policies intended to eliminate
what he called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Yet 49
years after the ESEA’s first enactment,
and on the 12 year anniversary of No Child Left Behind being signed into law,
significant achievement gaps remain.
Affording
states the opportunity to opt out of No Child Left Behind could reverse decades
of growing, inefficient federal intervention in education. Such flexibility,
offered through alternatives like the Academic Partnerships Lead Us To Success (A-PLUS) Act,
would give states the opportunity to prioritize how the taxpayer dollars that
are funneled through federal education programs are spent, allowing them to
target spending to their communities’ most pressing education needs. It would
reduce the bureaucratic compliance burden, begin to reduce federal
intervention, and move toward restoring federalism in education.
Posted in
Education
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http://blog.heritage.org/2014/01/09/child-left-behind-turns-12/