Goal is to ensure No Child Left Behind: President’s program enacts rigorous standards
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Mandating new testing measures and greater accountability, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001, known popularly as the No Child Left Behind Act, was signed into law by the president one year ago today.
Said by many to contain the most sweeping changes in federal education reform in almost 40 years, the purpose of the No Child Left Behind Act is to improve education for all students — especially those disadvantaged by such factors as race and socio-economic sta-tus. To achieve this, the law includes provisions for academic improvement, annual testing and improved teacher quality.
The key measure of the academic improvement requirement is included in the act’s yearly progress provision. This requires states to set increasingly higher academic performance standards each year so that by the 2013-2014 school year all students will be “proficient” (a level to be determined by each state) in reading and math assessments.
To measure such progress, the law requires states to give math and reading tests to students in grades three through eight every year and students in grades nine through 12 at least once during their high school careers by the 2005-06 school year. Additionally, by the 2007-08 school year, states must give science tests to the same students in those same grades.
Results of the tests are required to be made available to parents and the public. They must also be broken down by race, gender, socio-economic status and other criteria in order to determine how different groups are meeting the standards.
Tennessee is fortunate because it already has an approved testing framework in place: the TCAP and Gateway programs. According to school system director of instruction Bobby Cox, the state is one of six across the country designated a “model state,” whose testing programs other states are to emulate.
The law also stipulates all teachers (and paraprofessionals in the Title 1 program) must be “highly qualified” by 2005. This has been taken by most school officials to mean each teacher at the high school level must be certified by the state in each subject he or she teaches. At the elementary level, this means teachers must demonstrate subject knowledge in the areas of elementary curriculum they teach.
No longer will teachers without certification or licensure requirements be able to teach on waivers as is currently allowed on a temporary basis.
While the No Child Left Behind Act gives states the freedom to determine their own standards, it does provide an incentive for states and local school systems to meet them. Those not meeting the goals on time will face a range of penalties from a re-allocation of federal money to state take over of individual schools.