NCLB at the Crossroads: Reexamining the Federal Effort to Close the Achievement Gap

Citation

Washington, J.A. (2010), "NCLB at the Crossroads: Reexamining the Federal Effort to Close the Achievement Gap", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 263-266. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578231011027897

Federal Legislation in the United States established the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002. This law was enacted to take our nation a step closer to educational equity for all students (Rebell and Wolff, 2009). In theory and for the good of all students the goal of this law is universally accepted by many educators and non‐educators. In reality this law has many caveats and pitfalls that are worth examining. As 2014 rapidly approaches and all students must demonstrate mastery of grade level content, educators seek solutions to ensure that students in all subgroups meet this enormous challenge. As Rebell and Wolff assert, never before in the history of the American public school education system, have educators felt the direct influence of the federal government's involvement in mandating specific levels of student achievement. Some may feel that this involvement is long overdue and others may feel that it is too much, too quickly, and too late. No matter what opinion about NCLB one might have the authors lead the reader through a provocative journey that will cause the reader to reflect on his/her beliefs and philosophy of what our educational system should and could be for all students regardless of race, cultural background, disability, or socioeconomic background.

In November 2006, at the Teachers College, Columbia University, the Campaign for Educational Equity's Second Annual Equity Symposium, editors Michael A. Rebell and Jessica R. Wolff began to assemble their book NCLB at the Crossroads: Examining America's Commitment to Closing Achievement Gaps. The book is organized around ten chapters – some which began as papers commissioned for the Campaign for Equity's Second Annual Equity Symposium. Each chapter highlights a particular aspect of NCLB that must be addressed, if the law's promise to enact educational equity for all students is to become a reality. The authors provide data and information that will challenge the reader to examine their viewpoint on educational equity, high stakes testing, federal involvement in education, and other issues related to NCLB. The authors have deliberately provided the pros and cons of each issue allowing the reader to formulate their own conclusions to the merits and controversies surrounding NCLB's implementation and its accomplishments.

The importance of the research included in these chapters is the focus on critical components of the NCLB legislation as well as the implementation challenges, educational dilemmas, and the overall disparity between the goals and the reality of NCLB's affect on student achievement since its implementation. In chapter one, “Our children's burden: a history of federal education policies that ask (now require) our public schools to solve societal inequality”, author Amy Stuart Well's examines the various disparities that exist in our society such as poverty and wealth, segregation, and welfare policies in regards to closing the achievement gap. The reality of these issues in the lives of many students that attend public schools prevents the academic achievement gaps from being closed completely. Stuart Wells carefully explores the social pressures placed on our public school systems to use education as the tool to fix the various academic, financial, and social disparities in our society. Factors such as housing, health care, access to academic materials, socioeconomic status of the family, and other factors are explored. Schools are to provide the same instruction and obtain the same results even though the students entering the system come from a variety of backgrounds and are often completely opposite. These same students are expected at the end of the year to obtain the results on one evaluative tool. Wells exposes the unfairness of this type of system for educators, parents, and students.

In chapter two, “The challenge and opportunity African American achievement”, authors Michael T. Nettles, Catherine M. Miller, and Hyeyoung Oh examine the challenges that NCLB has encountered in regards to closing the achievement gap of African American students whereas Eugene Garcia focuses chapter three, “Educational policy for linguistically and culturally diverse students: foundation or barrier?” on similar challenges for English Language Learners. Both chapters provide a historical background regarding these diverse communities and provide insights into not only the academic needs of students, but of the cultural, socioeconomic, and societal influences, and community factors on students. Chapter four, “Standards, assessments, and accountability for students with disabilities: an evolving meaning of a ‘free and appropriate public education’” address NCLB in terms of closing the achievement gap for students with disabilities. One of the most widely terms used when addressing the needs of students with special needs is providing a Free and Appropriate Public Education. Special needs students must have access to all of the programs, materials, and activities as students without these disabilities. No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) and the Individuals with Disabilities Act (2004) were enacted to protect the rights of special needs students. Authors Margaret J. McLaughlin, Meredith Miceli, and Amanda Hoffman examine how policies that were originally designed to provide educational equity can take different approaches to achieve the intended goal.

The final chapters dissect NCLB in terms of the overall structure of the legislation and its desired affects to improve student achievement. Overall since the inception of NCLB, students' achievement as measured by high stakes testing has provided annual data regarding student achievement. Although the academic growth for minority students and students from low socioeconomic groups is not equal to their counterparts the current data demonstrates that student achievement for all students has improved since the implementation of NCLB (Rebell and Wolff, 2009).

In chapter five, “‘Proficiency for all’ – an oxymoron”, authors Richard Rothstein, Rebecca Jacobsen, and Tamara Wilder purport that achievement of proficiency for all students should be a target rather than the goal, and not used as the measure for evaluating school or student achievement. Schools should be held accountable for student achievement; however, reasonable targets must be set that considers that there is a wide distribution of student academic levels of performance. The goal should be to demonstrate improvement and not expect all students to end up at the same place. Author Robert L. Linn presents chapter six, “Improving the accountability provisions of NCLB”. Linn purports that NCLB's goals to improve student achievement is a widely accepted concept. He further asserts that a disparity exists between measuring whether students, schools, and educational systems will be able to achieve the current targets of 100% proficiency for all students in 2014. A common thread in the current consideration of NCLB is to place more emphasis on student gains and not just one targeted score for an individual year. It is also recommended that multiple measures be used to determine academic achievement instead of one assessment tool.

The final four chapters address NCLB in regards to standards based instruction, teacher qualifications, the federal government's ability to implement, regulate, and enforce a national policy to hold individual states accountable for student achievement. Chapter seven, “Standards, test, and NCLB: what might come next”, is presented by Robert Schwartz. Schwartz states (p. 185) that “A cornerstone premise of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is that the federal government can ensure that all states adopt rigorous, broad educational standards and aligned curricula and assessments”. He frames the discussion of NCLB in the context of the need for consistency in the quality of standards and the use of assessments as a vehicle to assess the ratings of schools. The federal government should use NCLB to hold states accountable for having assessment systems in place to measure students' growth and progress, but these assessments should relate to the entire state and not individual districts or schools. Susanna Loeb and Luke Miller present chapter eight, “A federal foray into teacher certification: assessing the ‘highly qualified teacher’ provision of NCLB”. NCLB required that all students be taught by highly qualified teachers. This requirement created a challenge for each state to define the parameters of this term. The process has been beneficial in making the requirements to become a teacher more demanding. According to these authors, the intent of NCLB's (p. 201) “highly qualified teacher” provision was to improve teaching and encourage equity in teacher quality across all classrooms, while giving states flexibility in determining how to implement the provision. Because of the flexibility of each state to determine the requirements and definition of a highly qualified teacher there is a disparity from state to state on this certification process.

In chapter nine, “The problem of capacity in the (re)design of educational accountability systems”, author Richard Elmore identifies a major break with past federal policy and NCLB. Elmore asserts that it constitutes a federal preemption of accountability policy, which had previously been, for all practical purposes, entirely a state function. This chapter provides a thought‐provoking discussion couched in the federal government's desire to hold the educational system accountable without providing the human and social capacity needed to implement the regulatory aspects of this law. In the concluding chapter, “A vital and viable agenda for reauthorizing NCLB”, editors Rebell and Wolff examine NCLB in light of its future and the lessons that have been learned over the past several years. They conclude by examining the topic of NCLB related to its viable and vital agenda. Further, they examine the flaws of NCLB and give substantive suggestions on plausible ways to make changes. These changes will provide educators and the public with an accountability system designed to provide all students with an equitable educational experience that will reform and enhance the public education system in the United States.

NCLB at the Crossroads provides a three dimensional look at NCLB, it strengths, flaws, and future potential as we approach the reauthorization of the law by Congress in 2014. The federal and state governments, educators, and the public have reacted over the years like a pendulum swinging from one educational reform movement to the next. Volumes of research now exist that can help us look at NCLB to improve and refocus its efforts to provide an educational initiative for all students. An initiative that is rigorous, high quality, equitable, and produces students that can demonstrate growth and proficiency on assessments based on standards‐based lessons they have been taught. The authors of the various chapters of this book have selected key elements of NCLB for careful consideration by the readers of its contents. The book is highly recommended for policy makers, district office personnel, and all those who have a vested interest in providing a quality of education for all children.