By Joy Resmovits
(From Huffington Post, January 4th, 2012)
When President George W. Bush joined congressmen John Boehner, George Miller and Edward Kennedy to sign the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, he touted the moment as a bipartisan victory for America’s children.
“Today begins a new era, a new time in public education in our country,” Bush proclaimed in Princeton, N.J., as he signed the bill into law on Jan. 8, 2002. “As of this hour, America’s schools will be on a new path of reform, and a new path of results.”
But 10 years later, results matching Bush’s rhetoric haven’t yet arrived — and the law itself is unlikely to change any time soon.
The latest rewrite of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, NCLB was the first federal law to mandate regular standardized testing of students. These test results were to become a key lever in a school accountability system that divided schools into those that were making “Adequate Yearly Progress,” and those that weren’t. This type of school-based ranking would lead to increasing federal sanctions for schools, such as the mandatory setting aside of federal money for tutoring or allowing students to transfer to non-failing schools. By 2014, the law said, 100 percent of public schools would have students proficient in math and reading.
But as the sweeping education law reaches its 10th anniversary this Sunday, the jury is still out on NCLB’s effects. While the law did shine a light on underperforming minority groups, scores on national standardized tests have seen little improvement and are still low, especially when compared to other countries.