No Child Left Behind Policy Analysis
Introduction
The role of the federal government in setting education policy increased significantly with the passage by Congress of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law that revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. "Federal policy has played a major role in supporting standards-based reform since the passage of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994. That law required states to establish challenging content and performance standards, implement assessments hold school systems accountable " (Goertz, 2005, pg. 73) American attitudes toward the public schools have changed radically in the last 50 years. In the 1940s public opinion polls showed that 87 percent of Americans were satisfied with the public school system. By the late 1990s, however, many Americans believed the school system was in need of an overhaul, and in the November 1998 congressional elections voters in nearly every state ranked education reform as the number one or number two issue on their minds. This change in attitude began in the 1960s and 1970s, but a major impetus was a 1983 U.S. Department of Education report titled A Nation at Risk. By linking U.S. economic troubles in the late 1970s and early 1980s to perceived problems with the U.S. education system, A Nation at Risk sent the message that the public schools were standing in the way of a strong economy, sparking a crisis of confidence in the public school system. As a result many politicians found themselves called upon to "fix the schools" and "restore their greatness," triggering a 15-year period of reform. Although most experts believe further reforms are warranted, the agreement ends there. Some want to toughen curriculum requirements and increase teachers' salaries to attract more competent teachers, while others think the answer lies in tackling issues such as poor parenting and poverty, which they believe are the main impediments to progress in education. Still
The role of the federal government in setting education policy increased significantly with the passage by Congress of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law that revised the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. "Federal policy has played a major role in supporting standards-based reform since the passage of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994. That law required states to establish challenging content and performance standards, implement assessments hold school systems accountable " (Goertz, 2005, pg. 73) American attitudes toward the public schools have changed radically in the last 50 years. In the 1940s public opinion polls showed that 87 percent of Americans were satisfied with the public school system. By the late 1990s, however, many Americans believed the school system was in need of an overhaul, and in the November 1998 congressional elections voters in nearly every state ranked education reform as the number one or number two issue on their minds. This change in attitude began in the 1960s and 1970s, but a major impetus was a 1983 U.S. Department of Education report titled A Nation at Risk. By linking U.S. economic troubles in the late 1970s and early 1980s to perceived problems with the U.S. education system, A Nation at Risk sent the message that the public schools were standing in the way of a strong economy, sparking a crisis of confidence in the public school system. As a result many politicians found themselves called upon to "fix the schools" and "restore their greatness," triggering a 15-year period of reform. Although most experts believe further reforms are warranted, the agreement ends there. Some want to toughen curriculum requirements and increase teachers' salaries to attract more competent teachers, while others think the answer lies in tackling issues such as poor parenting and poverty, which they believe are the main impediments to progress in education. Still
References: Chubb, John E. (Ed) 2005. Women in Education. In Within our reach: How America can educate every child. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Goertz, Margaret E. 2005. Implementing the No Child Left Behind Act: Challenges for the states. In Peabody Journal of Education, 80(2): 73-89. Hardy, Lawrence. 2003. The year of ‘No Child Left Behind '. In Journal of Research in Rural Education, 19 (1): 2-5. Mathias, William J. (2005). The cost of implementing the federal No Child Left Behind Act: Different assumptions, different answers. In Journal of Higher Education, 73(1): 90-113. Public Law 107-110. (2002). United States Department of Education. Rudalevige, Andrew. (2003). No Child Left Behind: Forging a congressional compromise. In No child left behind? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press: 23-55. Weckstein, Paul. (2003). Accountability and student mobility under Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act. In Journal of Negro Education, 72(1): 117-125.