No Child Left Behind: Impact, Criticism, and Legacy

Introduction

The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in 2001 by President Bush. The bill was signed three days after he took office and was intended to be "the cornerstone of his administration" (Department of Education, 2004), ushering in a series of reforms for public education in the United States. The Act emerged from a push for greater teacher accountability, on the principle that this would spur improvements in classroom performance. There were several problems with the Act from the outset, including an emphasis on standardized testing that caused teachers to teach to the test rather than instructing students in the material they genuinely needed to learn.

Ultimately, No Child Left Behind was viewed almost universally as a failure and was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in December 2015. This paper outlines the background of NCLB and its impacts on the American education system. A description of the law and its key provisions is presented first, followed by an overview of responses to the law. There were critiques from teachers, parents, and educational scholars alike. It appeared that the law had very few beneficiaries, and those who did benefit were generally those who already held advantages; disadvantaged populations tended to suffer under the law's provisions. Ultimately, the volume and breadth of complaints led Congress to overhaul, gut, and eventually replace many of the key elements of No Child Left Behind.

Background and Key Provisions

The stated intent of the law was to "close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind" (GPO.gov, 2002). The problem identified to justify the law was a gap in education quality between schools across the country — a gap that existed between different states and within states across different communities. No Child Left Behind was intended to close that gap.

The main mechanism by which the law worked was a set of common standards. Schools were expected to teach to these standards, and students would be examined on them. The concept was that by instilling a common set of standards, it would be easier to hold schools and teachers accountable for student underperformance, since common measures would allow for greater comparability of results across districts and states.

The law was passed in part to create economic incentives, using a quasi-market mechanism administered by the government. When a school or state performed well, rewards followed. Poor performance brought penalties. The challenge for administrators was to ensure their school avoided penalties, since such consequences would make it even harder to improve in the future.