http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-15/schools-federal-standards/51949126/1?loc=interstitialskip
Proposed during George W. Bush’s administration during 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act has reformed the United States public education. This act calls upon four pillars that attribute to its success: stronger accountability, more freedom for states and communities, more parental involvement, and utilizing proven teaching methods.
Ever since the program has been enacted, there has been dramatic improvements to the US public education system. The overall standardized test scores have improved over the years and the achievement gap in schools are beginning to close. However, recent stories have been published about the act becoming “defective” and “broken.” In this article from USA today, reports have shown that half of U.S. schools fail federal standards and this also became the largest failure rate since NCLB was enacted. According to a report from the Center on Education Policy, 43,000 schools or 48% did not make “adequate yearly progress.” The failure rates ranged from a low of 11% in Wisconsin to a high of 89% in Florida. There were also discrepancies with States’ scores: In Georgia, 27% of schools did not meet target marks, while in compared to 81% in Massachusetts and 16% in Kansas. One possible explanation for these discrepancies is that states sometimes administer harder tests or have a large population of immigrants and low income children. It was also said this year states increased the bar for how many children must pass the test and some states have the highest increased this year to avoid sanctions. One solution for the rising failure rates was administering waivers to be exempted from the acts rigorous testing system and the punishment system that enforces the act based on the test scores.
